AOE Saga: The Dragon Within
by Cydra
Summary: Xover with AD:JL. A mysterious gem has been discovered with a power that will give the Dark Dragon the power to rule over mankind. As our heroes guard the stone, Matt will discover something even more dark and mysterious about his past.
1. Prologue

AOE Saga

The Dragon Within

Prologue

**NSSC Controlled territory**

**Commerce Station 'Constantine'**

Matt walked through the crowded streets of Constantine station. It had been a week now since they'd left Mythicos behind and the BiNebular and Matt's new ship, the 'Shadow Hawk' had stopped here for a supply stop. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the stone he'd grabbed after his fight with Massacrate. "After I find out what you are I'm using you to trade for supplies," he said and looked up at where he'd arrived. "Gralok's rare jewels. Here we are," said Matt and opened the door.

Inside it was musty. Display cases filled with everything from basic diamonds to super rare Dark Matter Jewels from the center of black holes cluttered the place. He was looking at a collection of time crystals when a voice behind him stated "Can I help you human?" giving him a minor heart attack.

"Gah…I mean yeah," said Matt, turning to see an old bronze coloured Dracon behind him. He pulled out the stone. "You know what this is and what its worth please?" Gralok took the stone off Matt and turned it over in his talons before walking over to the counter. Matt strolled after him and watched as Gralok pulled out a funny device and inserted the stone in it. "Er…Gralok?" he said but Gralok just smiled a toothy grin at Matt and said "Nothing to worry about. I just want to know what these runes mean. We don't want a curse, do we?"

Matt thought about that. "No we don't." he said thinking back to the mystery curse Massacrate had hit him with. "Definitely not," he muttered. He looked up as the device pinged. "Here we are…no…it can't be," said Gralok, reading the results and looking more terrified by the second. He looked up at Matt. "Where was this found?" he said, sounding angry. Matt shrugged and said, "I picked it up on Mythicos last week. Look, how much is it wor…?" he began but was cut off as Gralok shoved the stone into his hands and shouted. "GET THAT ACCURSED THING OUT OF MY SHOP, HUMAN!"

Matt backed up "Whoa…a simple 'its worthless' is usually sufficient. Dumb lizard reject," he muttered angrily, not noticing the faint glow on the stone as he pocketed it again.

**BiNebular**

**Docking ring 2**

Matt stomped aboard in a foul mood. Chris walked up. "Yo Matt. How'd the…trade…go?" he said as Matt walked by, ignoring him, heading for his quarters. "Er, Matt? That chuppacabra's restless…" there was a yelp and the chupacabra scampered back, slightly singed from plasma blasts. "…never mind," finished Chris.

**--------------------------------**

Matt sat in his quarters. He'd shoved the stone onto his desk and was lying on his bed, looking at an old hologram from his Temporal Marine days. "Who did we smeg off so badly they'd wanna blow us up?" he muttered "Why'd they kill you, Chloe?" he said sadly. Strangely he began to feel calmer. What the hell? said V-627 in his head This isn't normal, Lynch…and that's coming from ME Matt snapped out of it when he noticed that the runes on the stone were glowing an eerie deep blue, which was getting brighter.

A blue light beam focussed from the top of the stone in between Matt's eyes, 'rather like a laser sight' said his instincts. It began to hum loudly. "Oh hell no." said Matt and dived to the side just as a blast blew his bed apart. This also set off the BiNebular's alarms. Matt got up to see the stone focussing another shot at him and concentrated his plasma control on veering it away. Nothing happened. "Oh…smeeeeg!" he yelled running for the door as the stone let loose another volley. He dived through just in time and hit the emergency seal button. The blast shield shot down and bent outwards as the stone tried a few more shots.

Chris ran round the corner with Kala and some of the experiments. "What the…you look like you tried to take on a T-3 single handed, Matt," said Chris as Kala used her powers to heal the few cuts Matt had got. Matt was leaning against the door. "Can you get everyone? I think I should tell exactly what I got off Mythicos…"

After Draco, Chip, Morph, Lilo, and Stitch got there, Matt explained about the crystal he discovered. "You tried to pawn off an obviously magical crystal?" yelled Lilo outraged. "How was I supposed to know it was magical?" asked Matt. "If it wasn't magical, the Doom Weapons wouldn't have been keeping it," said Chip. "Magic's nothing to trifle with," said Draco, "that's one of the primary problems I have to deal with: people using magic without any idea what the repercussions might be. 'Ooh, look at this! This may contain some demon that would try to take over the world. I think I'll sell it to the highest bidder on eBay.'" "I don't sell stuff on eBay," said Matt, "anyway, the point is that thing tried to vaporize me or something." Draco blinked and said, "Yes, we better find out what that thing is before it does it again."

Draco slowly opened the dented door to Matt's room and crept inside. There were scorchmarks everywhere, but the crystal looked like it had never done anything bad in its life. Draco picked it between the tips of his finger and thumb and brought it out. Chip slowly took it and examined it. "It doesn't appear to any different from any other diamond," said Chip, "in fact, it doesn't have a single abnormality or flaw in it. Probably worth a lot." "I'm telling you," said Matt, "those ruins lit up and tried to fry me." "I don't see anything wrong with it," said Kala. "It's different, I'm telling you!" Chris put his hand on Matt's shoulder and said, "Look, you've been stressing all day. I think that stress is getting to your head." Matt's face turned slightly red and said, "I'm not hallucinating! That thing tried to kill!"

Suddenly the runes started glowing blue again and the beam focused on Matt's forehead. "Not again!" cried Matt as he smacked the crystal out of Chip's hand. The crystal landed a few feet away and let off a blast of blue energy. Everyone dove out of the way except Morph, who didn't see it coming. The blue energy hit Morph and caused the nexus of blue sparks to play around his body before vanishing. Lilo looked at Morph and said, "Are you okay?" Morph blinked and said, "That didn't hurt. Not the least bit." "Well duh," said Chris, "you're a plasma blob. You can regenerate." "But I can feel pain," said Morph, "that thing didn't even damage me." "Then how'd it cause all that?" asked Matt, pointing at the damage the crystal did in his room. Draco picked up the crystal off the ground and studied it. Then he put it in one of his mouth and chomped down on it. But instead of shattering, the crystal seemed to cause a lot of pain on Draco. He spat out the crystal along with a couple of teeth. "Yep," said Draco as his gums grew more teeth, "that's dark magic. I know when I taste it. No wonder Gralok wanted out of his shop so badly." "But what kind of dark magic is it?" asked Chip. "I don't know, but we're gonna find out."

Later, Draco was contacting the Dragon Council on Earth through a crystal ball. "I think it's an enchantment stone of some kind," said Draco, "but I can't tell what kind." The Council Members talked among themselves and then the Dragon of Europe said, "I think it would be best if you brought the stone here for examination." "Yes," said the Dragon of Atlantis, "we must know its properties." "All right," said Draco, "I'll bring my friends down here to make sure nothing happens to it." "Very well," said the newly appointed Dragon of Asia, "but if you don't mind, I'd like to hire some professional security for the stone." Draco shrugged his shoulders, said, "Fine with me," and ended transmission. The Dragon of Asia turned to the others and said, "Now if you don't mind, I need to make a call." The Dragon of Asia left the room and went to another room with a crystal ball. When she looked to see no one was there, she whispered a secret address into the ball. As the fog in the orb swirled, the Dragon of Asia removed her guise. What looked like a thirty-some woman of Indian descent became the treacherous Councillor Chang. As the image of the Dark Dragon came into view, she said, "Master, I have some news that might interest you."

There's the first chapter. It's going to get even more interesting in the next chapter. You're gonna see sparks flying. Keep an eye out. Please review.


	2. Under Lock and Key

AOE Saga

The Dragon Within

Chapter 2: Under Lock and Key

The Shadow hawk took our heroes to an isolated part of New York City. They landed on top of an unused building top. As they got out, Lilo asked, "Aren't people going to be curious about a spaceship parked on top of a building?" "No problem," said Matt and he clicked a button on the key. The Shadow hawk shimmered and its cloaking device made it invisible. Meanwhile, Rick was looking over at the other buildings. "Ah, New York City," he said, "The Big Apple, The Gateway to America," "The City of a Thousand Settings," finished Akira. "Huh?" "You know," said Akira, "there are hundreds of movies, books, and games that take place in New York. Bet Nullspace is riddled with dimensions that overlap this place." Suddenly a small tear opened up in the air. "Looks like a Nullspace portal," said Stitch as he stuck his head in. "Where's it go?" asked Lilo. Then they heard a dinosaur-like screech and Stitch withdrew his head, slightly charred from a fire attack. "I think that's the Godzilla remake," he said as the portal resealed itself.

"Ah, you have arrived," said a voice. Everyone looked to see an old Chinese man in a blue robe. "I am Lao Shi; I have come to show you to where you will guard the artifact you found. You did bring it, right?" "It's right here," said Draco, holding a heavily chained stasis crate. "Nothing can get outta that," said Matt smugly. "Draco, it is good to see you again." "Likewise," said Draco, bowing his head respectively. "You two know each other?" asked Matt. "I was sorta like his unofficial apprentice," said Draco. "But now is not the time for casual conversations," said Lao Shi. He pulled out several blindfolds from his pocket and said, "I must ask that you where these; the place I'm about to take you to must remain a secret." After they put on the blindfolds, Lao Shi led them through on a twisting path that didn't seem to lead anywhere. Matt could have sworn he felt a tingling sensation, like he had stepped through a portal. Not long after that, Lao Shi told them, "You may remove your blinds now."

When they took them off, they saw they were in a large room with several tapestries hanging on the walls. The tapestries depicted several stories about the dragons. "What is this place?" asked Chris. "It's one of several vaults the dragons use to guard important treasures," said Lao Shi. Matt was looking at one of the tapestries. It showed several dragons being attacked by a larger black dragon. "Who's this supposed to be?" asked Matt. "That's the Dark Dragon," said Draco, "the biggest threat to the magical world. He's not one you want to get on his bad side."

Suddenly a pair of doors opened and the Dragon Council walked in. As they approached, Lao Shi, Draco, and Chip respectfully bowed their heads. Taking a cue, the others did the same. The Dragon of Asia looked at the crate and asked, "Have you brought the artifact?" Chip cautiously removed the chains and opened the crate. The diamond sat on a stand, seemingly nonmagical. The Dragon of Africa looked doubtful and asked, "Are you sure it's magic?" "Well it, er, redecorated Matt's room," said Draco, "and it even zapped Morph." The Dragon Council looked dubiously at Morph, who was looking at the different tapestries. "He doesn't seem affected." "I don't think he is," said Chip, "but it went off when Matt got mad." The Dragon Council seemed more interested and made a hurried whispered discussion. Finally they faced our heroes and said, "Very well, we will examine this stone, but since it seems to be of powerful magic, we wish to enforce the security a bit." "Okay," said Rick, "who'd you hire?" In answer to that question, another pair of doors opened and two people walked in. These two were wearing high-tech battle armor but had left their helmets off; which made it easier for our heroes to recognize them.

"You!" yelled Matt. "You!" yelled Captain Dante. Silvia groaned and said, "Don't tell me we have to work with this riffraff." "Who are you calling riffraff, mongrel?" said Chris. Silvia glared and said, "You're just as a mongrel as I am, even more since you got your powers through antiquated DNA splicing." "Is there a problem?" asked Lao Shi. "Yeah!" yelled Matt, "these two are the most twisted, back-stabbing mercs in the galaxy!" "Don't you think you're being a bit hasty with that?" asked Draco. "I might not know them as well as you and Chris," said Chip, "but they seem at least halfway decent and somewhat trustworthy." "**_Will you two move it? You're blocking the way._**" Dante and Silvia moved aside to let Virustoxico hover in. "Ah, come on!" yelled Draco, "they're not even anti-heroes, they're villains!"

"How can trust these guys guard that stone?" cried Chip, "they'll probably steal it the first chance they get!" Virustoxico glared at Draco and Chip and said, "**_We were hoping we wouldn't have to see you here. The Traveller and that hybrid are just about enough, but you two?_**" "Wow," said Morph, "all that's missing is," "Oh, don't tell me you guys are the other team," complained NegaMorph as he came through the doorway. Matt walked over to a wall and began to gently beat his head on it muttering, "I can't take this." "Well the gang's all here," said Morph as he waddled as far as he could get from his Shadow Clone. The other Council members looked at the Dragon of Asia as they said, "It appears that you have mismatched our security teams." The Dragon of Asia looked nervous as she said, "I was only looking at their resumes, I had no idea these two teams were rivals." "**_We're more like archenemies,_**" said Virustoxico. "Nevertheless," said the Dragon of Europe, "you are all supposed to guard this item until we can verify its nature. Now, you've each received a number. We shall randomly select four of them to be the first shift to guard the stone." Suddenly four flames appeared in the shape of the numbers, 1, 2, 7, and 9. "Hey, that's my number," said Matt looking at the piece of paper with the 1 on it. Silvia looked at her 2 and groaned, "That's mine too." Morph looked at his 7 and asked, "Who got 9?" "That would be me," said NegaMorph in a reluctant tone. The Dragon of Asia pointed towards a hallway and said, "The stone shall be stored in the vault you'll find at the end. It's marked #81." Matt picked up the crate and went down the hallway, followed by Silvia, Morph, and NegaMorph. But for a brief moment, Lao Shi talks with Morph and sends him on his way.

As quickly as she could, the Dragon of Asia broke off from the other Council members and went to the private crystal ball chamber. This time she used a spell to teleport to the Dark Dragon's lair itself. "How goes it, Chang?" asked the Dark Dragon as Chang removed her guise. "It went better than I had hoped, master. The two groups loathe each other. They will be too busy bickering while you seize the Fang Stone." The Dark Dragon smiled and said, "And with its power, I will control all of New York. However, I think I would like a little word with that amalgam you hired." Chang looked doubtful as she said, "I'm not sure NegaMorph will be of much help." "No, Virustoxico. I believe I have an offer for them they cannot refuse."

Matt leaned against a statue looking at Silvia who was checking the vault, "So…what's the plot, Silvia? You wait till everyone is asleep…shoot us and leg it off with the stone back to Hamsterjerk?" Silvia shrugged, "Not really…Dante had to go on this contract and there were offers…" Matt began laughing. "You're in it for the money…so cliché," he said. Silvia glared then smirked coldly. "At least I don't have a gun obsession or a faulty A.I in my…" she had to duck as Matt/V-627 lunged at her. "I'LL GET YOU AND IT'LL LOOK LIKE AN ACCIDENT, YOU HALF-TROG!" both personalities screamed.

The two Morphs watched the fight with interest. Morph said, "Ten credits on the crazy one," as Silvia got Matt in a headlock and was bashing his head on the vault door. "Which one's the crazy one?" said NegaMorph. The two of them laughed for a bit until NegaMorph said, "Seriously, which one's the crazy one?" "That's Matt," said Morph as Matt gave Silvia a Wet Willy. NegaMorph wasn't listening as in his head some inner dialogue had begun, 'Get him while Matt and Silvia are busy…who are you kidding…the 'Great Emperor', that smegging hamster wants him in one piece…all you'll get is one minute of happiness and no pay check.' "I'm off to explore," he said in a bored voice. "Bring me back a milkshake," said Morph as he went back to watching the fight. NegaMorph considered putting arsenic in it, but then he realized that would have no affect on Morph. As he walked through the door, he heard Silvia cry, "Ow! That's my hair, you jerk!"

NegaMorph looked at the other vault doors before he settled on #16. The vault contained one item; a keychain with a small lock-shaped pendent attached to it. NegaMorph noticed a small note near the keychain's stand. "Lockblade keychain: origin- Kingdom Hearts, purpose- Keyblade equipment, description- the Lockblade keychain has an unusual affect on Keyblades that are quipped with one. It permanently changes the Keyblade into the Lockblade, a sword that is powered by negative energy and is very useful for sealing doors and portals. But because of the specific nature of its power source, Lockblades are rarely mastered." NegaMorph studied the small keychain. He didn't know much about this 'Kingdom Hearts' place, but he had found a Keyblade on an ancient ship found drifting in the cosmos. He pulled the weapon from out of his N-shaped mouth and picked up the keychain. Since no alarm went off, it appeared that the dragons didn't really care about the keychain. He looked at the hilt of the Keyblade and found a small notch where he could attach the keychain. With careful precision, he equipped the keychain.

The affect was instantaneous. Purple energy raced up from the keychain up the blade. NegaMorph's arm vibrated from the rush. He watched as the blade slowly changed to resemble a black bat's wing with three red spikes at the end. Then the energy rush stopped and NegaMorph was left standing with his new Lockblade. There was no keychain attached, so the upgrade seemed to be indeed permanent. He swung around a few times to test it and found it moved very well. Apparently, it customizes to whoever wields it.

Then he felt something on his face. He pulled it off and saw that it was a red mask that fitted exactly right. There were plenty of eyeholes for the five eyes in the middle of his face and there was a keyhole-shaped eyehole for his larger eye. Three spikes curved gracefully to fit between his twin ears. Apparently this mask was to help focus his power through the Lockblade. Satisfied with his new weapon, NegaMorph returned to the vault where the others were.

Matt and Silvia's fight had begun to wind down a bit when NegaMorph got back. Matt had got the upper hand and Morph, in true experiment style was egging both of them on indiscriminately. NegaMorph sighed and opened his hand-mouth. One of his fangs shot between the two, making them freeze. Silvia glared. "Watch where you're shooting those," she said. Matt was more interested in NegaMorph's find. "Where did you get…please tell me you were NOT stealing from our employers…that's like…Rule one in the C.P.S handbook," he said in a tired voice. "C'mon…put it back," he said walking up to take it. NegaMorph shook his head. "No way…those lizards couldn't work it so they locked it up. I'm just spring cleaning for them," he said putting the Lockblade and Lockmask away. Morph said, "It's not spring."

Then a small beeping caught Matt's attention. He looked at his temporal drive and noticed a red light flashing. "Smeg, my power's running low. Anyone have a time crystal?" "What do I look like, an alchemist?" said Silvia. NegaMorph shrugged and said, "Not on me." "I produce lots of weird energies," said Morph, "I'd probably be able to recharge it." He took the temporal drive from Matt and plugged into his Tech-Pack. To Matt's surprise, the red light changed to orange, signalling that it was recharging. "Is there anything that thing can't do?" he asked. Morph scratched his head and said, "Well, I can't get it to program a VCR."

Suddenly, a Polaroid photo popped out of Morph's mouth. "Oops," said Morph as he took the photo out, "guess something in your time-travel thingy must have activated my Pix power." "Let me see," said NegaMorph grabbing the photo. "Be careful with that," said Matt, snatching the photo away, "You don't touch this. Don't ever touch this!" NegaMorph looked at Matt resentfully and said, "Sheesh, I was just trying to see what it is." "What is it?" asked Silvia taking the photo away from Matt. She looked at it and asked, "Is this you?" "Yes," said Matt as he went back to looking at the stone. "Who's this girl with you? She looks kinda like you." Matt inhaled through his gritted teeth and said, "If you must know, that's my sister Chloe." "You have a sister?" asked Silvia. "Had," corrected Matt. Silvia looked at the old photo, of Matt and Chloe together with those other people from the Temporal Marines. "It seems so familiar," she whispered.

Suddenly, she smelled fetid breath and looked at her left shoulder. NegaMorph has stuck the end of his tail over her shoulder and using the single eye on it to look at Matt's picture. Silvia batted the tail away from her and said, "What did I tell you about personal space?" NegaMorph shrugged and said, "I think I might have heard of your sister. You and she used to have a private detective agency after doing mercenary work for some private security company." "Something like that," said Matt as he continued to stare at the different runes on the diamond. "I heard you got into a bit of a scrap with the Splitters." Matt's temples started to throb, "Yes." "Then they blew her up to get even, not much of a fighter was she?" Matt swung around, his face beet red, unaware that the diamond's runes started to light up. "Is there any reason you're so interested?" he said, barely controlling his rage. "Just curious," said NegaMorph as he examined the sharpness of his claws, "guess that's what happens when you mess with a superior species." The runes on the gem suddenly lit up both blue and purple. "WHY YOU LITTLE- !" yelled Matt as he dived for NegaMorph, knocking the stone over and out of the stasis field keeping it in check. NegaMorph yelped as he jumped to the farthest wall from Matt.

The gem suddenly let off two beams of energy. The purple one hit Silvia who was not expecting it. The deep blue one hit Matt who was too busy thinking about throttling NegaMorph to see it coming. The two of them seemed to turn into light of their respective colors. Then their forms grew larger and changed shapes. Then the light went out and they crumpled to the floor. Morph looked at a female purple dragon with long horns extending from the back of her head. NegaMorph looked down at a deep blue male dragon of the same species with curiously shorter horns. His talons were inches away from NegaMorph's neck before he had lost consciousness. NegaMorph looked at Morph who was equally exasperated. "We better call somebody," said NegaMorph.

When Matt woke up, he had a tremendous headache. His vision was like looking through poorly-made, fogged-up goggles. He looked around until he heard what sounded like Draco's voice saying, "Matt, Matt, how many horns do you see?" Matt looked in the direction the voice came from and stared blurrily. "Six?" he said after a moment. "Eh, close enough," said Draco at the same time as his triplets. He looked another direction and gave a startled cry. "What?" asked what could have been Chris. "What is that thing with those two enormous eyes?" asked Matt. "That's Chip, you dumbbell." Matt tried another direction and said, "Stitch, get off the ceiling." "Stitch isn't on the- oh, for crying out loud." Suddenly Matt felt a shock of coldness and sat straight up. Now his vision was much clearer and he could see he was in some kind of healing chamber. Then he saw that his friends were around him, Kala holding a dripping bucket. Matt sputtered and spat some of the water from off his lips and said, "What happened? What are we doing here? Who took my shirt?" "Well when some dragons first transform, their clothing pays the price," said Lilo. Matt stared for a few seconds and started laughing. "That's crazy Lilo, you're crazy." "Okay, then, do this," said Chip, wriggling the fingers on his right hand. "Why?" asked Matt, "is this some alien game you play to pass the time?" he glance at his hand and screamed. Instead of five human fingers, his hand had four claws and was covered with dark blue scales. He waved the hand for a bit and it returned to normal.

"It seems that when that stone zapped you and Silvia, it turned you two into dragons," said Chris. Matt had barely came to terms with the first part when he said, "What? Silvia too?" "She handled it better, I think, Dante carried her out of the vault." "He's got very strong muscles," said Morph. "Well, we decided that your shift can stop, for now, me, Kala, and Akira and take over for a while. In the mean time, why don't you take a tour of New York?" asked Rick. "I don't know," said Matt. "Did I mention that the stone seemed to negate the EXP Virus's mental effects." "There's a chance that thing could off a-, say that again." "When the stone zapped you," said Rick, "it shut down your inhibitor armband and V-627 hasn't surfaced yet." Matt didn't move for a second and then suddenly grabbed Rick and kissed him. As Rick gagged, Matt let out a whoop and said, "No more annoying voices, no more urges for destruction, no more risks with friends!" "Don't start a fiesta yet, party boy," said Draco, "it's probably only temporary." He turned to Chip and said, "By the way, what kind of dragon did he turn into?" "A British Dragon," answered Chip. Draco blinked and said, "He's British? I didn't know that. I thought Brits have accents like this." He picked up a chimneysweep, put on a beaten-up old top hat and said with a Cockney accent, "'Ello guv'nor, mind if I take a sweep of the ol' chiminey?" "No, no," said Chip, "the English talk like this." He put one a monocle and bowler hat and said in a posh London accent, "Have you seen the cricket game last Tuesday? Smashing game that was." "Will you two knock it off!" yelled an abruptly angry Matt. He walked out of the room grumbling, "Where can a guy find a new shirt around here?"

"What's his problem?" asked Draco. "Either today is the anniversary of some horrible event that has left him emotionally scarred," said Chip, "or he has no sense of history. Americans and Britains have been making jokes about each other for centuries. They portray us as barbaric pigs with bad hygiene." "I find that offensive," said Morph, and then he burped scratched his armpit and said, "By the way, why did Silvia turn into a British Dragon too?" "I have no idea," said Lilo, "well, me and Chip are going to do a bit of clothes-shopping up Main Street." "I have a bad feeling for my wallet," said Chris. "I have a bad feeling for my spine," said Stitch.

Silvia was walking down another hallway. She heard of how the EXP Virus is overruled by the stone's spell, but she didn't revert to human form. She never did. Suddenly a hand came out of the shadows and grabbed her shoulders. Her eyes suddenly turned purple. "You will obey any command of mine or the Dark Dragon's," said the voice of Chang. "I will," said Silvia in a mindless tone. "Act like you are still yourself, but have Virustoxico go to the crystal ball chamber." "I will."

* * *

There's another chapter. We're going to do a few random bits for a while. You don't want to miss them. Please review. 


	3. Maiden Distress

AOE Saga

The Dragon Within

Chapter 3: Maiden Distress

Matt, Draco, Lilo, and Stitch were shown to a doorway that seemed to lead to Times Square, but was more likely a portal to Times Square. Matt was about to step through before he heard someone yell, "Wait! Wait for me!" A Hawaiian girl of about 15 years of age ran over to them. She was wearing blue jeans, an indigo tank top, and had a hairclip that looked like a digital eye. "Erm, do I know you?" asked Matt. The Hawaiian girl took a few minutes to catch her breath and said, "Looks like my disguise works after all." "Disguise?" asked Matt. The girl's face was replaced by Chip's eye, which was practically all of his face. Chip winked and the Hawaiian girl's face returned to normal saying, "Call me Chixie." Matt blinked for a couple seconds as he slowly realized that a cyborg alien experiment that resembled a robot would draw a lot more attention than two other alien experiments that were disguised as Earth animals and a little girl who was turned into an experiment but was hiding this under a similar hologram.

"Isn't Times Square too public to warp to?" he asked. "The reason we're warping to it is because it's so public," said Lilo, "no one will see us among the other dozens of people." Matt nodded and walked through the portal. There was a slight tingling sensation and he found himself in Times Square. As the others materialized behind him, Matt heard someone say, "Yo, what up Lilo?" Matt looked and saw a 13-year old boy with spiky green and black hair and wearing a red jacket and blue jeans shorts. "Aloha Jake," said Lilo. "Hi Jake," said the experiments. "Nice to see you guys back in NYC," said Jake, "who's this?" "Jake," said Chixie, "meet Matt Lynch. Matt, meet Jake Long, he's the American Dragon." Matt and Jake shook hands and Jake asked, "So where you come from?" Matt scratched the back of his head and said, "It's a long, long story." "So, is there any place in New York you wanna see?" "Well," said Draco, "it'd be nice to go see the Empire State-" "Ooh," interrupted Lilo, "what's that over there?" That happened to be one of several clothes shops in Times Square. "Let's check it out," said Chixie and she and Lilo ran over there. "You ever get the feeling you're about to be in an uncomfortable condition?" asked Draco.

Whether it was Draco's psychic horns that made the prediction or just plain dumb luck, all four boys were soon loaded to the max with several bags and boxes of clothes. But fortunately enough, Lilo and Chixie had decided to stop. "You wouldn't happen to be in your feminine form under that hologram, would you?" asked Stitch suspiciously. Chixie looked from side to side before saying, "Maybe." "Why do girls have to buy so many clothes?" groaned Draco, "can't they just be satisfied with what they need?" "With that attitude, you'll never get yourself a girlfriend," said Lilo. Draco snorted loud and long, "Like that'll ever happen. I'm not going to end up cat-whipped like Stitch here." Stitch extended an extra arm and punched Draco in the side.

Fortunately, Draco managed to hold on to his considerable burden. "Well I'm holding on to my dignity, right Jake?" "What, oh sorry, I was thinking of my last dream date with Rose." Draco set his packages down and yelled, "Honestly! You're all pathetic, the lot of you! Except for Matt here." "Yeah," said Lilo, "and his chivalry's worse that yours." The two girls giggled. "Hey!" said Matt, "I can get a girl anytime I want. I'm just too busy fighting evil." "Don't be so quick to judge," said Chixie, "someday, you'll find a female experiment that fits your fancy. Then it'll be lovey-dovey." Draco scoffed and said, "That'll be the day that pigs fly."

Suddenly a greenish pig-like experiment with wings suddenly flew straight between their legs. It was closely followed by Morph, who was for some reason wearing a small brown bowler hat and holding two pieces of bread. "What are you doing?" asked Stitch. "I am trying to make a ham-sandwich," said Morph, "but the ham won't cooperate." "Morph," said Chixie, "that's Hamlet, the pork-making experiment, he could make you into a ham sandwich." Then Chixie did a double take and said, "Scratch that, that's his Viral Clone." She quickly activated her capture gun and put Viral Hamlet into a capture container. "Now go put this back at the storehouse. And can you take these with you? Oh and here's a dollar to buy a hamburger with." Morph stored the capture container inside himself as well as the several cloth packages. He held out his bowler hat and said, "I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for another ham-burger today." Matt gave him some more money and Morph trundled off. "How'd that Viral Clone get on Earth?" asked Lilo. "What's a Viral Clone?" asked Jake. Jake was quickly briefed about Viral Clones. "You know," said Draco, "the Viral Clones were scattered all over the multiverse. It's not impossible for one to wind up here. In fact, who knows how many other clone or even those future experiments are here."

Suddenly a noise was heard, but at so far a distance that it could only be heard by Stitch and Draco. It sounded somewhat like a bird that had suddenly been caught unawares. "I think I hear something," said Draco. He quickly climbed up the wall of a nearby building, closely followed by Stitch. The two of them scampered over rooftops towards where the sound came from. Then they heard it again, only it sounded like the bird was in distress. The two experiments hurried their pace and soon came upon a backway alley. At first, it seemed like no one was there. Then suddenly something gold and scarlet flew past at an incredible speed. Seconds later, men dressed in maroon armor came around the corner and started chasing at the flying creature. One of them held up a blue staff and shot a green beam at it. There was a squawk and it fell to the ground. Now Draco and Stitch could see what it was.

It was a bird that looked slightly like a swan with golden plumage. She, for there was a certain feminineness about the bird, had red wings, a purple underbelly, and a red stripe going down from the back of her head to her tail. Her tail was red, but was somewhat reptilian in shape with a row of purple feathers on either side. The tail ended with a long red flame-shaped feather with a golden eye in it. The bird also had three feathers extending from the bridge of her beak that seemed to change color with the light.

The bird tried to take flight again, but a net was thrown over her. Then a man wearing a cape and a dragon's skull on his head walked over and picked up the netted bird. "This is a strange kind of phoenix; it will definitely be worth studying. Back to the Headquarters!" He and the other men disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Draco and Stitch didn't have enough time to respond before they were gone. "I never saw a phoenix before," said Stitch. "That wasn't a phoenix," said Draco, "she had three legs and there were four claws at her wingtips. I think that was an experiment." Stitch then smelled something and went through a couple more alleys with Draco following. Stitch stopped at a collection of crates and rummaged through it. Then he grabbed something and said, "I think you're right about the experiment." And he pulled out a small timepod.

Back at the HQ, the timepod was put under careful surveillance. The first thing that was discovered was the name, "USS Honolulu," printed on the outside. Then they found several documents containing information about the EXP Virus, most of which were already known. It didn't take long to put two and two together. The phoenix experiment had worked on the USS Honolulu on the day the ship was taken over by the Virus Clones and she was sent into space with the documents so they could be turned into the authorities. Unfortunately, most of information was already known and the only thing that wasn't known was the construct of the EXP Virus. But that was in a cryptic code in case the documents fell into the wrong hands.

But the main reason they were examining the timepod was to determine the identity of the phoenix experiment. Suddenly they found one red feather that apparently came off of her when she left the timepod. It was quickly scanned by a computer that had information on all current 777 experiments. After a while, the computer showed a picture of the phoenix experiment's experiment icon as well information about her. "Experiment 750;" read Matt, "Primary function: revitalization. 7-5-0 is a healing experiment designed to heal almost any wounds and can restore inanimate objects to their fully repaired state. She also has fire power for defence and can come back to life after being killed by almost any attack." "Now that is fascinating," said Chip. "We gotta go rescue her," said Draco earnestly. "But we don't know where the Huntsclan's headquarters are," said Lilo. "Actually," said Jake, "I think Rose might be able to get us in. But they've probably made it impenetrable to dragons." "But not to aliens," said Stitch, "we can get in and get out with 7-5-0 without anybody noticing." "Yeah," said Draco, "we won't let her stay in the Huntsclan's clutches." "Since when do you care so much about experiment rescues?" asked Chip. "Well, the Huntsclan could figure out her power and use them for their own selfish purposes," said Draco.

"You know," said Matt, "I know a couple of friends who can help get us in there." "What kind of friends?" asked Stitch. "Er, business friends mostly." Nearly everybody suddenly imagined the sound of a bomb falling and then exploding. "Uh, thanks, but no thanks," said Draco, "I think we can do this on our own." Matt pouted and walked off. "What's his problem?" asked Jake. "Don't know," said Chip, "but anyways, we need to put together a proper rescue team. Draco, Lilo, Stitch, and me can go, but we better leave Morph and Matt behind. This needs to be delicate. You better stay behind too, Jake. If those Huntsmen see you, you'll be skinned without even noticing it. Any other suggestions?" "What about NegaMorph?" asked Lilo, "he's pretty good at sneaking?" Draco laughed and said, "Please, Lilo, the creature's a crook. He was even sent to jail." Suddenly they heard NegaMorph yell from upstairs, "I'll have you know Emperor Hamsterviel personally came to bail me out of prison!" Everyone blinked and asked, "How does he do that?"

Since there were no more suggestions, the rescue team then pondered how to get to the Headquarters. "I think we can open a portal directly to where they're hiding 7-5-0," said Draco. "I don't know," said Jake, "I think Rose told me something about direct portal spells." "Nothing ventured, nothing gained," said Draco. There just happen to be enough ingredients for a portal spell. As the portal was being created, Morph sundered on in munching on the last part of a hamburger and asked, "Whatcha doing?" "Making a portal spell so we can rescue an experiment," said Lilo. Morph stepped in front of the portal and asked, "How does it work?"

Before anyone could answer, a Krylock Demon's head came out of the portal and grabbed Morph in its mouth. It then proceeded to shake Morph around. "Now I remember," said Jake, "the Huntsclan hired Krylock Demons to keep any non-Huntsclan members from slipping in." "That would have been useful information 1 minute ago," said Chip. Then the Krylock spat out Morph and went back to its own dimension, closing the portal behind it. "You okay Morph?" asked Stitch. Morph was about to reply when he bloated to five times his normal size. "I thought that only happened with manticores," said Lilo. "No," said Draco, "any magical poison causes an allergic reaction in Morph, and yet it's nullified at the same time." Then he sighed and said, "Guess we'll have to go in the hard way."

**Abandoned Subway Station… **

In a seemingly abandoned subway station, a girl of about 15 years of age wearing a maroon uniform was pushing a cart carrying a crate with several air-holes in it. There was a lot of grumbling coming from inside the crate. "You guys know what to do when we get there right?" asked the girl. "Yeah, yeah," said Draco's voice from inside the crate, "Can you hurry it up, Chip? I think Stitch had burritos for lunch." Then the girl walked over to a busted-looking ATM. One of her hands shimmered and was replaced by a metal hand with five flat fingers. She slid them down where the card would go and several numbers flashed on the screen. Then there was an affirmative ding, and a door in the wall opened.

The girl took the cart and wheeled it through the door. As the door closed behind her, tow small boys came holding short staves. "Who are you, and what is your business here?" asked one boy with the number 88 on his sleeve. The girl pointed to her sleeve and said, "Number 629, I came to drop off this crate full of magical creatures I caught." The other boy with the number 89 on his sleeve looked through the crate's air-holes and asked, "You sure those are magical creatures?" On cue, Draco put his ice-mouth near the air-hole closest to #89 and gave him a blast of icy-cold breath. #89 withdrew his now icicle-covered face and said with chattering teeth, "They're magical alright." #88 looked nervous for a second and then said, "Take them to Storeroom 75, just follow the signs." #629 smiled and pushed the cart along. As she disappeared around the corner, #89 said to #88, "I didn't know we had 629 members."

When #629 went to Storeroom 75, she went in and closed the door behind her. Then Chip turned off his hologram and used his hands as crowbars to pry the lid off the crate. Lilo, Stitch, and Draco popped out with a few moans. "Why'd Jumba have to make you so long?" asked Lilo. "Hey," said Draco, "3 feet is as short as I can get." It didn't take to long to find Experiment 750. She was kept in a birdcage near some shelves holding several skulls made of crystal and in the Aztec fashion. As Draco started working on the lock keeping the birdcage shut, he said, "Don't worry, we'll get you out. What's your name?" The experiment blinked and said in Turian, "I've always been called 7-5-0." "That's your experiment number, not your name," said Draco, "how about I call you Contrinus?" "That sounds nice," said 7-5-0, now Contrinus. Chip scratched his head and said, "A portmanteau of the Latin words for 'ashes' and 'refresh'? That's very fine, but why are you so interested in…"

Then Chip's two brains made several calculations and reached a conclusion. "Unless you like her," said Chip. "What!?" cried Draco as he let Contrinus out of her cage. "That's it! You so like-like her," said Chip smugly. "No I don't!" said Draco. "Draco's got a crush, Draco's got a crush," sang Chip. "Chip," said Lilo, "this isn't the time and place for this." "You're right," said Chip with a large grin, "we should get Draco's boogie-boo out of here soon." Draco's face turned slightly red and he whacked Chip with his tail. Chip hit the wall and jostled the Aztec skulls on the shelves. Chip looked up to one of them falling right on top of him. Thunk! The skull went right over Chip's head. As Chip struggled to remove it, an alarm suddenly went off.

**Meanwhile, Outside… (at the same time as Chip and the gang were in the storeroom)**

Matt had been watching as Chip had gone into the subway station from across the street. He was dressed in combat fatigues with a symbol of an hourglass on the shoulder. He scratched his shoulder. He hadn't worn his old Temporal Marines kit for ages. "Ok, they've been in there too long," he said to one of the figures next to him. A black American with the name badge 'Wilson' nodded. "So…What's the deal with this?…you call out of the blue after a year…" he said till he noticed Matt's stare, "Fine…let's go." The two began to cross the street towards it. Three others strolled out of their hiding places.

The first was a Chinese girl about 19 called Talia. She was a sharpshooter for the team and could hit a target a mile away…blindfolded. The second was a British guy, about 18 and the youngest. He was wearing a baseball cap backwards. His nickname was Techo and, in his words, if it was computerized, he could make it do anything. The last person was the tallest. He looked like a normal guy but he was a Splitter. His name was Xander. Techo looked at the ATM. "They really don't like visitors here. Triple thread encryption…amateurs," he said and began to screw around with the buttons. Matt turned to the others. "Simple plan…NO shooting 'em…that's why we've got stunguns…if they hit you…hit 'em back," said Matt simply. Techo swore as the ATM said 'access denied' for the 15th time. Xander said, "Allow me," and pushed the wall door down…with one hand. "There…the door's open," he said smugly as the alarm sounded. Matt stepped through and right into #88 and #89. The squad as one grinned. Every invading force loves to meet guards with room temperature IQ's.

"Ok…We're coming in," said Matt, trying to walk past. The two Huntsclan members aimed at him with shaking staffs. "Get lost…w-we're not scared of y-y-you," said #89 despite the evidence. Matt shrugged. "You're right. This isn't a scary uniform. Xander?" he said stepping aside. #88 and #89 were aware of the light being blocked out. "Now this…" said Matt from somewhere behind the eclipse "…is a scary uniform…hello?" Talia looked. "They fainted…" she said. Matt shrugged. "Meh…shove 'em in the closet," he said. Xander put them in the guard room and locked the door.

A few more Huntsclan ran round the corner and, seeing Matt, fired some plasma blasts at him from their staffs, knocking him over. The rest of the team dived for cover. "They shot Lynch…Those smeggers," said Techo angrily. Wilson drew his stungun. "I'm gonna…the hell?" he said. Matt got up again. "You…smegheads. I had this kit years…and you go blast a hole in it," he said to the stunned Huntsclan members who tried to shoot him again. Matt shrugged and stopped the plasma orbs in mid air before sending them back, knocking the Huntsclan out cold. He turned to his team. "Let's go tear the place apart…when we're done, they'll beg to tell us where my friends are," he said.

The second the alarm went off, the experiments knew it was time to leave, and to heck with keeping it quiet. As Draco ripped the door of its hinges, Lilo and Stitch tried unsuccessfully to remove the Aztec skull from Chip's head. When they heard plasma gunfire, Lilo said, "We'll have to remove it when we get back." Then they all ran out the door. Unfortunately for Chip, the skull was shaped like that of a human's, which he was clearly not. So not only was a bit uncomfortable, his large eye couldn't see out of the skull's eye sockets at the same time. This resulted in a lot of stumbling, banging into walls, and going the wrong way. "You know you deserve it for teasing Draco," said Stitch. "Okay, okay, I admit it," said Chip, his mouth wasn't part of his head so his voice wasn't muffled, "but even you have to admit that it's pretty obvious Draco's smitten with Contrinus." Then Chip tripped again and Draco snapped with irritation, "Look through the nose hole." Chip found this to be far better than the eye sockets and his clumsiness decreased.

Suddenly they ran into a larger room. Metal spikes came up from the floors and covered the doors. The group tried to ram through them, but they quickly learned they were electrified. Then Huntsclan members dropped down from the ceiling using trapdoors and surrounded the group. Then the Huntsmaster himself appeared. "Well, well, well," he said, "look what our newest catch has brought us. I admire your effort to rescue her, but your attempt is hardly commendable. Now, you will surrender both the phoenix and that dragon. Don't try to tell me he's not a dragon," he said as the others were about to protest, "I recognize dragon when I see it, even if it's a strange breed. Now if you two, dogs, want to leave, you'll also surrender the mechanical squid that's stealing our skull." "I'm not a squid, they're not dogs, we won't surrender anybody," said Chip, "and I can't give you this skull even if I wanted to. It's stuck on." The Huntsmaster shrugged and said, "No matter, I doubt the skulls' contents will matter when we do the ritual, but the body has to go. But enough talk, you two are going into nice comfortable cages." Then he seized Contrinus by the neck.

That was a rather bad mistake, as Draco roared and started to go into alien mode. He spat a fireball which the Huntsmaster deflected with his fireproof cape. Other Huntsclan shot several nets that covered Draco from head to tail before Draco could extend more than two of his wings and his horns. "You won't do that again," said the Huntsmaster, "that's sphinx hair, you cannot break, it?" Draco had nonchalantly shredded the nets on him. "That may work on an ordinary dragon," said Draco as he extended all of his extra limbs, wings, and opened his extra mouths, "but I'm no ordinary dragon." There was a flurry of activity as the experiments and the Huntsclan battled it out. The Huntsclan were strong but were unprepared against aliens. Very swiftly, most of the Huntsclan were defeated. When Chip was about to strike the last one, she cried, "Wait!" She took of her mask and said, "I'm Rose, Jake's girlfriend." The other experiments paused. "Jake managed to tell me about your rescue mission. I was going to help you escape but someone barged in and set off the alarm." "Who would be dumb enough to do that?" asked Contrinus. The others only had to think ten seconds before they all yelled, "Matt!" Then they all ran towards the exit.

The experiments ran into a room where they saw Matt and his team beating up a load of Huntsclan. Xander whacked one Huntsclan so hard he went about 15 feet…into another group of clan members. Talia was using some Tae kwon do moves to beat up anyone who tried their luck. Techo was being chased by a few Huntsclan, emptying his pockets as he did so. He finally pulled out a funny orb filled with green liquid. "There you are," he said tossing it over his shoulder where it exploded, the liquid gluing the clan members in place. "Nice…it worked," he said.

Matt and Wilson were back to back, shooting their stunguns at any clan member they saw. "Just like old times, eh Lynch?" said Wilson. Matt stunned a Huntsclan member taking aim at Talia and said, "Yeah…brings back memories." Xander spotted a few clan members running in down some metal steps. He sent a blue lightning bolt into the steps, shocking the clan members into the air and stunning them.

Matt turned and spotted Chip and the others. "Oh…er…hey guys…rescue team?" he said. "In this order," said Chip, "What were you thinking, how'd you find us, and who the heck are these guys?" "You might need help getting out, we followed you, and these are some old friends of mine," answered Matt. "What's with the hourglass?" asked Lilo. "Talk later," said Matt as he kicked another Huntsclan member, "who's that." "I'm Rose," said Rose as she put her mask back on, "sorry, but I have to make this look convincing." She swung her staff at Matt who dodged it. "Okay," said Matt, who was slightly irritated, "you asked for it." He was about to throw some plasma when Rose whacked him several times and threw him to the floor. Around then, the other Huntsclan members started retreating. As Matt got painfully back to his feet, his friends started to advance towards Rose. "Don't hurt her;" said Stitch, "she's a double agent." Then Talia looked at the experiments and said, "So these are your friends Matt? You really haven't changed too much." "More that you know," said Matt. Then Techo noticed Chip, "that's one nifty robot you got there, even if he's dressed like a Cubone. You don't mind if I have a look at him, would you." Chip slapped Techo's approaching hands and said, "Mess with my insides and you'll have to build yourself some new arms. But you can get this skull off my head."

"You better go," said Rose, "the rest of the Huntsclan will be back with reinforcements. I'll stay here and say you knocked me out and left." The others agreed and walked outside. Matt was forced to explain to Lilo and Stitch about his friends. Chip didn't have any problems aside from grumbling, "He could have least call me a Marowak." Draco and Contrinus walked out last. "Thanks for saving me," she said. "No problem," said Draco, "and don't you worry about a home, there's plenty of room on the BiNebular for you. But not everyone speaks Turian, so you'll have to learn English." Contrinus was quiet for a bit and asked, "Would you like to go flying with me some time?" "Sure," said Draco, "I've always wanted to go to the top of the Empire State Building. Of course, I've heard there's a griffin nesting there." As they continued to talk, their tails slowly wound about each others.

* * *

There's another chapter. As you can see, Draco's now has a girlfriend and you'll be seeing a little more romance in future stories. Please tell me what you think of this. Keep an eye out for the next chapter. 


	4. Matt's Darkest Memories

AOE Saga

The Dragon Within

Chapter 4: Matt's Darkest Memories

When they went back to headquarters, the experiments forced Matt to explain about his 'friends.' He eventually told them that he used to be part of the Temporal Marines and they were his former teammates. "Why'd you quit?" asked Lilo. "I thought it was a bit cramped working in C.P.S. so I moved out," said Matt, slightly stiffly. "Your grammar's wrong," said a voice. Everyone turned around to see that NegaMorph's entered the room. "What do you mean his grammar's wrong?" asked Stitch. "When someone's talking in the first person, they are supposed to say 'we' and 'us' if it's plural. But I guess you two were so close there hardly seemed to be any difference." "What are you talking about?" asked Akira. NegaMorph seemed surprised. "He never told you?" he asked, "guess it's more personal than I thought. But you should have at least heard it from Morph." Draco looked at Morph who looked like he was trying to invent his own song by whistling. "Morph," said Draco, "is there something you should tell us?" "He won't tell," said NegaMorph who was changing the length of the fangs in his hand-mouth to see which suited better, "Matt made him swear not to tell, but he forgot to make me swear. So I have no problem telling you that Matt had-"

Suddenly Matt used his power over plasma to snap NegaMorph's mouths shut. Then he used it fling NegaMorph all over the place and do what was apparently uncomfortable positions. Then Matt had NegaMorph stretch to where he nearly snapped in two. "Listen up, you fouled-up crossbreed," he said in a rigid voice full of anger, "if you dare reveal anything you aren't supposed to, I'll make sure not even your shadow will come back together. Do I make myself clear?" NegaMorph was not in any position to talk properly but one of his mouths managed to squeak, 'yes'. Then Matt let go of NegaMorph, who snapped back together and collapsed upon himself in exhaustion. Then Matt marched out the door, still fuming, saying, "I'm going to bed."

"What on this planet was that for?" asked Chip. "Who Matt used to have known must have something to do with this," said Rick. "I wonder who or what it could be?" asked Contrinus. Then Jake came in and noticed NegaMorph lying in an exhausted puddle. "What happened to him?" he asked. The others told him what happened. "That must be a really bad memory," said Jake. "Wait, Draco," said Lilo, "why don't you use your telepathy to see what's making Matt mad?" "Because I can only read the thoughts he's thinking," answered Draco, "I can't go into his mind." "But I can," said Jake. "What?" said Stitch. "Rose gave me a dream amulet so we can be in each other's dreams. We can also use it to access other people's subconscious. I better go, since I know about the dream world." "I've always wanted to see Matt's mind," said Kala. "He'll probably need healing," said Contrinus. "If Contrinus goes, I go," said Draco. "If Draco goes, I go," said Chip. Surprisingly, Morph didn't join in. "Aren't you coming?" asked Chip. "Nah," said Morph, "I'm not allowed in other people's dreams, court order." So all who weren't going left the room, but they left NegaMorph since he was too tired to move anyway. Then Jake, Kala, Contrinus, Draco, and Chip all sat at a table and each put a hand on the amulet. Then they let themselves drift off to sleep.

Suddenly they found themselves inside a long gray corridor with doors on both sides. "There's got to be enough doors for everyone in New York," said Kala. "There are," said Jake. "Sure is a lot of people, eh Chip?" said Draco. Suddenly they saw that Chip's not there. "I guess he wasn't touching the amulet as he was supposed to," said Contrinus. "He shouldn't be too far," said Draco. They examined different doors and found one labeled NEGAMORPH. "I wonder what his subconscious is like," said Kala as she opened the door. She only looked for a minute and then closed it behind her. "What was it like?" asked Jake. "Sorta like a combination of the Null Void, the End of the World, and the World That Never Was," said Kala. "There's Chip's door," said Contrinus, pointing at a door labeled CHIP. They all quickly went through.

However, as the door to Chip's subconscious closed, the door to NegaMorph's conscious opened again. NegaMorph stepped out and said, "So this is the Dream Corridor. Could use a new paint job." You see, NegaMorph overheard our heroes' plan to infiltrate Matt's mind and made sure he went to sleep not too far off from where they were. He knew that they couldn't resist the chance to look inside his subconscious and would open the door for him. "Now I can get into Matt's subconscious and get V-627's mind," he said. But as he was about to walk down the corridor, he noticed two doors labeled CHRISTOPHER POWELL and ANGELA SILVIA.

NegaMorph's grin spread halfway around his head as he said, "Then again, I'd never get a chance like this." He searched through the pockets of his coat until he produced two black beads. These were Nightmare Beads, when attached to the door of someone's subconscious; they'll give wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-screaming nightmares. Unfortunately, these were only strong enough for one bad dream, but they could be linked to make sure that the two victims shared the same dream. After putting a Nightmare Bead on both Chris's and Silvia's doors, NegaMorph said to himself, "Now, what kind of nightmare should I give them?" He thought for a minute and said, "Ah, just the one." He pressed a hand against both of the Beads and said the spell that would make the beads give the appropriate dream. Then the beads turned red and melted into the doors. NegaMorph went back to his own door and said chuckling, "Sweet dreams."

When Jake, Draco, Contrinus, and Kala entered Chip's mind, they expected to see a lot of machinery and other scientific stuff. Instead, they found themselves on the left side of a stage. "What kind of dream is this?" asked Draco. Suddenly a spotlight turned on and shown down on Chip who was standing in the center of the stage. He was wearing an old-fashioned British general's uniform. As the invisible instruments started playing, Chip cleared his throat and sang;

_Chip:_

_I am the very model of a modern Major-General,_

_I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,_

_I know the Kings of England, and I quote the fights historical,_

_From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;_

_I'm very well acquainted with, too, with matters mathematical._

_I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,_

_About binominal theorem I am teaming with a lot o' news,_

_With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse._

_Chorus:_

_With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse. _

_With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse. _

_With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse. _

_Chip:_

_I'm very good at integral and differnential calculus;_

_I know the scietific names of beings anamalculous:_

_In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,_

_I am the very model of a modern Major-General._

_Chorus:_

_In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,_

_He is the very model of a modern Major-General._

"What the heck is this?" asked Jake. "I believe it's an exerpt from the Pirates of Penzance," said Kala. "Shall we grab Chip and get out of here?" asked Draco. "No, no," said Contrinus, "I think he's doing well." Chip continued until the end of the song and then Draco stepped out and tapped Chip on his epauletted shoulder and whispered in his ear. "Oh right," said Chip. The stage and Chip's uniform vanished and they all went quickly out the door. They went down the Dream Corridor until they found one labeled MATTHEW LYNCH. "This is our stop," said Jake as he opened the door.

The door opened into what looked like the old 'ISS Ohana's' bridge section. Various signs pointed to what were probably parts of Matts mind. The most interesting was the security console. All the screens were showing various memories and past dreams. Jake looked at one of the monitors, showing a futuristic shuttle with the words 'Skyraid' painted on swooping away from an exploding station. "Intense," said Jake before something grabbed him. "Who are you guys? I didn't know Matt was letting his dreams run around," said the obvious voice of V-627. It was indeed the homicidal 627 virus clone. He glared at the group. "Chip, the walking tin can, Draco the magic dragon and even Kala…the walking, talking cure," insulted V-627. "I'm not tin," said Chip, "I'm made of a special alloy that protects me inside a computer." Draco merely huffed. Kala glared and said, "Now I'm going to cure you, for good." She reached out towards V-627 but she somehoe couldn't touch him. V-627 laughed and said, "You'll have to better than that! This is Matt's mind, you're just guests. You can't touch me here."

V-627 spotted Contrinus. "And who's the new one? I admit that stone's made it hard to find out what Lynch is up to," he said strolling over. Draco just managed to stop himself from blasting V-627. "We came to find out why Matt's so touchy at the moment," he said. V-627's grin widened. "Ah…I thought so…through there…last on the right." He said before sitting in the security chair. As they turned to leave he added in a serious tone, "Be careful…something's been lurking around there. I'd hate to have permanent company…it's already crowded with us two already."

The group walked through the corridor with its flickering overhead lights till it led to what seemed to be Matt's quarters. Draco looked at it. "Here goes," he said and opened the hatch. It opened out into a busy street on a splitter colony station. "I wonder where this is," said Jake. Round the corner came Matt, carrying a shopping bag and whistling. Kala walked out to meet him…and was walked straight through. "Ok…that was creepy," she said shuddering. Jake said, "I guess we can only watch," as they followed the oblivious Matt round the corner…where an apartment building was surrounded by several station police hovercars. "What the hell are you doing?" yelled Matt. One of the policemen motioned for him to be quiet, saying, "We received a tip off that there are some arms smugglers at this address. We're about to bust them."

Matt stared for a minute then burst out laughing. "You've been sent a prank call," he said chortling and walking towards his door. Draco and the others watched as Matt stopped in front of his door saying, "Me and my sister are the only tenants in this block. Now bug out before I call your searg…" KAAAAABOOOOOOOOOM. The whole front of the apartment vanished in a fireball tossing Matt and the cops back from the force of the explosion. As they watched Matt was stunned as he fought insanely to get back inside.

An old newspaper was on the ground, showing the date to be tomorrow. Kala looked sadly as the dream began to fade away. "Poor Matt…lets go…I've seen enough," she said walking to the door. As the group left two red eyes appeared and there was a scraping sound…like metal. Outside a wall was now blocking the way they'd arrived. The only way was the long way round. After a few minutes walking they began to get the sinking feeling that they were being followed.

"I never knew that Matt had a sister, and lost her," said Draco. Suddenly Chip paused by one door and then went in. He came back out holding two files. "She was lost, she was taken," said Chip. "What?" said Draco. "That was Matt's information storage," said Chip and he handed Draco one of the files, "and this is some info regarding Matt's encounters with Splitters." Matt read the contents and said, "So Matt and his sister destroyed a Splitter's space colony because it became infested with Symbiotes?" "The Splitter Forces was going to have that cleansed, but the Lynchs blew if up before that. Apparently, that was their last adventure together before that bombing." "So that's why Matt was acting queer when Splicer was around," said Draco. "And here's the most important piece of evidence," said Chip as he handed Draco the other file. Draco pulled out the slightly charred note that was in it. "'Revenge is ours'?" said Draco, "not that good a comeback for Splitters." "The Splitters didn't write that." "What?" "Look," said Chip, "that letter right there is part of the wrong dialect. Not to mention that Splitters hardly ever use the word 'revenge', they prefer 'vengeance'." "So you're saying that someone knew that Matt and his sister did something to get the Splitters really mad at them and used this bombing to frame the Splitters?" asked Draco. "That's my most likely guess," said Chip, "but what I can't understand why? What was the motive?" None of the others had heard this conversation and were walking normally. "Should we go put these back?" asked Draco. "That's not necessary," said Chip. He put the files inside those mail-carrying tubes and sent them back to the information storage. "All that would do is make Matt remember those two things, but he's probably still fuming so that wouldn't matter much."

Suddenly they all heard the noise of metal creaking and the feeling they were being followed was increased. "What's behind us?" asked Kala. "I don't know," said Chip, "I can't see through that darkness." Contrinus fluffed up her wings and opened her beak. A ball of iridescently-colored fire shot out and collided with the darkness behind them. The darkness scattered under the fireball's radiance of light and revealed the creature stalking them. It was none other that Massacrate, chainsaw body, two scythes on his back, horned and sharp-toothed skull with glowing red eye sockets. The only difference was that this Massacrate was 20 feet tall. "That's one vivid memory," said Draco as Massacrate roared. "RUN!" yelled Jake and they all hightailed it with Massacrate following them.

They came to what resembled a long metal bridge. On the other side of the bridge was the area they first entered when they went into Matt's mind. As the others crossed the bridge, Draco stopped and yelled at the the oncoming Massacrate, "You cannot pass!" "Draco!" cried Chip and Contrinus. In response to Draco's challenge, Massacrate's blades covered themselves in blue fire. "You will not harm my friends!" cried Draco, "you are nothing more than a memory of the real Massacrate, a shadow of a Doom Weapon that haunts Matt's mind. Go back to the shadows."

Massacrate reached down to grab Draco but was buffeted by Draco's prism sword. "You shall not pass!" yelled Draco and he focused his energies through the prism sword and blasted the part of the bridge Massacrate was standing on. It gave way underneath him and the Doom Weapon of Death fell through. But before he fell into the dark abyss beneath, he grabbed Draco and dragged him down with him. The others watched horrified as Draco disappeared from sight. "Let's get out of here," said Jake weakly. They quickly went out the door and into the Dream Corridor and from there into the waking world.

They woke up with a start except Draco. "I never want to that again," said Contrinus. She looked at Draco's sleeping body and asked, "What will happen to him now?" "He'll probably sleep forever," said Chip, "his dream self never to return home." Contrinus put her head on Draco's shoulder and started weeping. Then Matt came in, yawning, and said, "Man, what a weird dream I had." He looked at everyone and asked, "What's going on?" Suddenly Draco yawned and woke up. "What a pleasant nap," he said. Contrinus trilled with joy and kissed Draco on the cheek. This caused his chameleonic skin to involuntarily turn red around his head. "How'd you escape?" asked Chip. "It turns out that that Massacrate was really just a personification of a curse the real one put on Matt." "And what was that curse?" asked Kala.

"It said that Matt would soon be in the hands of the ones he offended most. Of course that could be anybody. So the curse-Massacrate went away and I found another way to the door." "Which was?" asked Chip. Draco had a bit of disgusted look and said, "I'm not telling, but let's say it wasn't the cleanest way out." Then he turned to Matt and said, "By the way, you might want to hide those magazines in a different spot." Matt looked confused. "My Judge Dredd comics?" he spotted the dream amulet. "Wait a minute…what were you doing in my brain?" he said, slightly miffed.

**Later that night…**

Chris dreamed he was at a wedding. He was dressed up in a tuxedo and had his hair combed and everything. But he wasn't a guest, he wasn't even the best man, he was the groom. The bride beside them had her face completely shrouded in a white veil. In front of them, Louis Griffaxe was saying, "And do you Chris take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?" "I do," said Chris. "Then by the power invested in me by the Elemental Spirit of Wind and as captain of the ship Carbolodornviorten, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride." Chris moved the veil aside and leaned forward. He only had enough time to see his bride's purple-furred face before their lips touched. At that moment, both Chris and Silvia woke up with a scream and not far away, NegaMorph, opened his eyes for a second and then closed em, grinning hugely.

**Matt's Psyche**

**Deep subconcious**

Deep in Matt's mind one door sat. It had been dreamed up with one clear purpose, to separate outside and inside quite clearly. Inside sat what looked like, at first glance to be Matt in his hybrid form…till you saw the eyes. They were the eyes of a murderer, of someone who'd kill you as easily as tell you the time of day. Suddenly, the curse-Massacrate appeared. "Out you come," he said slicing a small hole in the door before vanishing. Slowly the hole was getting bigger. Draconus looked at the hole in his prison. "Soon, Mr. Lynch…soon," he said. He'd waited for months…he could wait a little longer…

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Now that's foreshadowing. Who planted that bomb? What will the curse do to Matt? Who was that mysterious being locked up in Matt's deep subconscious? Keep reading this story for the answers. PLEASE REVIEW. 


	5. Cards Played Out

AOE Saga

The Dragon Within

Chapter 5: Cards Played Out

It was breakfast time for the crew at where they were staying. Matt was gently nursing a cup of cocoa, taking sips every so often. 'Today was the day. Man I miss you, Chloe,' he thought looking into his cup miserably. The door opened and Chris staggered in, looking worse for the wear, helping himself to the coffee. Matt looked up. "What happened to you?" he said in a dull voice.

Chris looked up. "I just had one of the worst nightmares ever." Matt shrugged. "And this was?" Chris went on to explain his dream about marrying Silvia. Matt just stared. Morph waved his hand in front of Matt's eyes. "I think you broke him," he said after getting no reaction. Suddenly Matt yelled, "THAT'S MESSED UP!" "Tell me about it;" said Chris with a grimace, "I'd rather have one about being fed to an Emperor Asteroid Worm."

Meanwhile Chip was talking with Draco about Contrinus. "Look…you should be really careful around Piton Toxico now. He could use your liking for Contrinus against you. He'd trade all his extra heads for this kind of advantage over you." Draco nodded and said, "True, I wouldn't put it past that hybridized hydra to do something as underhanded as that. Where is he anyway?" "I've seen him with Silvia. Muttered something like 'This better be important' or something like that." Draco grinned and said, "Speaking of Silvia, can you imagine her and Chris walking down the aisle?" Chip smirked and said, "More like screaming in opposite directions." The two of them roared with laughter along with any other experiment nearby.

Matt got up. "I'm going out," he said gloomily. Chris jumped up ignoring some of the sniggers of the other experiments who'd heard him explain his dream. "I'm coming too…in your mood, you'll blast the first guy to throw you an insult," he said following. NegaMorph, who'd been silently enjoying Chris's embarrassment, got up for a stroll too.

A few minutes later…

NegaMorph was walking through the dirtier part of New York. He kept his trench coat and fedora tight around him so that people wouldn't know he was an alien. NegaMorph got bored watching the stone since it didn't do anything. Except for when it went off when Matt tried to strangle him.

NegaMorph grumbled to himself as he walked through a series of alleys. NegaMorph didn't really like the city. The vibes here were tangled and twisted so he couldn't tell which were positive and which were negative. Another reason he didn't like the city was because he was extremely asocial in nature. Close to hermetic in fact. The only person he really opened up to was Silvia. She seemed… different in a kind of way he can't identify. Maybe it was because she wasn't too corrupted with power and focused on her work first. She's probably the closest thing to a friend that NegaMorph had.

NegaMorph sighed and was about to start back when something happened that should have never happened. NegaMorph was walking by an alley when he heard some obnoxious laughing. He looked over into the alley and saw a gang of teenagers. They seemed to be a mix of punks, goths, and 'gangstas'. The leader, who was a boy with a tattoo of a roaring panther's head on his arm, pointed and said, "Look what's crawled into our turf." Another boy spat and said, "Man, dat's the ugliest hobo I evuh seen." NegaMorph looked at them and said, "Shouldn't you kiddies be school?" The teenagers laughed heartily at this. Then one of the girls stepped forward. She was much younger than the others, about 12 or thirteen. She had red hair with black highlights and was wearing black clothing in the gothic stile. A few accessories of interest on her was the earring that was shaped like an eye on her left ear and the bracelet make of pewter fangs on her right arm. "We don't go to school," she said, "we're too cool for that." NegaMorph focused his stare on her and said, "Aren't you a bit young to be hanging out the badlands?" "You don't want to tick Megan Roph off," said one of the other girls. "Or what?"

Megan gestured a hand towards the shadow of a trashcan. The shadow lifted itself of the ground and slapped NegaMorph in the face. "Yeah," said one of the boys, "Megan's born with mad skills. She'll beat you down flat with her shadows." NegaMorph brushed some grime off his coat and said, "Actually I'm not the type to get mad either." He turned around and started to leave. He was planning on sending them nightmares telepathically when the leader did something incredibly stupid.

The leader said, "Yeah, we know what your type is, freak!" He threw a tomato at NegaMorph's back which hit with a splat. Two eggs were thrown by the other boys. NegaMorph stopped stock still when this happened. The gang started laughing wildly except for Megan, whose instincts told her to get out of the way. She back into a corner and covered herself with a shroud of shadows to escape notice. Suddenly the others stopped laughing when the tomato and the eggs suddenly burst into flame and were quickly converted to ashes. The feeling in the air quickly changed as NegaMorph's coat and hat evaporated, revealing his true form. He turned on the now cowering teenagers and yelled in a demonic voice, "NO HUMAN CALLS ME A FREAK!!" His roars drowned out the teenagers' screams as he leapt at them.

Sometime later, NegaMorph called Dante, "Dante, you have to get over her. I infected a gang of hoodlums with the EXP Virus." "What'd you do that for, NegaMorph?" asked Dante. "Let's just say that they pressed the wrong button." NegaMorph hanged up and looked at the teenagers he attacked. Their bodies were looking pretty mangled, but they'll recover after the mutation. NegaMorph looked around and said to himself, "Where'd that little shadow-bender go?" After finding nothing, he shrugged his shoulders and recreated his hat and coat from the shadows. He then headed off back to where they were guarding the Fang Stone.

As soon as he was gone, Megan let her shroud come off. She stepped over the bodies of her friends as carefully as she could. According to NegaMorph, if the man over the communicator was calling him by name, her friends would mutate into something and she didn't want to find out. Besides, someone was coming over to pick up the bodies. She got to the other side and was about to leave when something caught her eye. A large blot of NegaMorph's plasma was stuck to the wall. She was about to wipe it off when she recalled the strange powers that creature used. She picked up a beer bottle that her leader was drinking previously and dumped the vile stuff out. Then she slowly scraped the vile stuff on the wall into the bottle. She put the top back on it and looked at the inky black substance inside. "You're going to be very useful for me," she said. She quickly left the alleyway, clutching her prize close to her.

Central Park…

Matt and Chris had parked not far away and Matt had insisted on taking a nice quiet walk. That and Matt had nearly blown up a taxi that had cut them up on the way there. "…I don't care if it's the anniversary of your sister being blasted…YOU DON'T GO 627 ON ANNOYING TAXIS!" Chris was saying. Matt wasn't listening. "Er…Chris? Where in the park are we?" he said looking around. All that was around was a tent that advertised Tarot card readings. Chris shrugged. "I dunno…what are you doing?" he said as Matt walked towards the tent. "I always wanted to try this," said Matt going inside.

Inside the gypsy had been listening and heard Chris answer, "You know, it's all fake right?" Matt peeked in. "It said Tarot readings outside?" The gypsy nodded. She planned to swindle this non-believer…right up to the point when she asked to have her palm crossed with silver and Matt gave a pure silver NSSC credit when she decided to do the real deal instead. She got an ancient-looking set of cards and said, "These are special cards. What ever future they predict is inevitable, they are never wrong." She shuffled them and spread them out in a special way. First, she put two cards in a horizontal position in the middle of the table, then she place two cards in a vertical position to the left of the cards in the middle, another set to the right, three underneath, and one above. "Now we shall see what the future holds," she said.

"These cards represent you," she said as she flipped the cards of the left side. revealing first a knight of horseback wielding a sword and then two children with six cups full of flowers. "The Knight of Swords," said the gypsy, pointing at the knight, "it shows you are an adventurous young man out on a quest. But the Six of Cups," pointing to the two children, "shows that you are feeling nostalgia, missing someone from your past."

"These cards show the nature of your enemy," she said as she flipped the cards on the right, revealing first a man wearing a crown of leaves and then a demon with a man and woman chained to its seat. "The Emperor and the Devil," she said, "it means your enemy is one who is in a position of power with a corrupted greedy heart. And yet, I feel that these cards could also mean two separate enemies. Perhaps your 'Emperor' will metaphorically 'make a deal with the Devil.' Or perhaps literally, I am not sure."

Then she pointed to the horizontal cards in the middle. "These two cards show the connection between you and your enemy," she said and flipped them over. On the bottom was a picture of a chariot being pulled by two sphinxes and on the top was a picture of a maiden with a lion laying its head in her lap as she keeps its mouth closed. "Oho," said the gypsy, "The Chariot and Strength. It shows that you and your enemy are fighting for superiority and the focus is tipping the scales in your favor. In other words, a balance of power, an interesting combination."

Then she motioned to the three cards at the bottom. "These cards represent elements that will affect the balance of power." She flipped them one by one to reveal; a young man with a stick and bandana over one shoulder and a white rose in his hand; an old man wearing a dark robe and holding both a staff and a lantern; and an angel pouring liquid from one vessel into another. "The Fool, the Hermit, and Temperance," explained the gypsy, "they represent the nature of three people who can help you defeat your enemy." "What exactly is Temperance?" asked Matt, knowing the other two. "A blending of the elements," said the gypsy, "sometimes healing."

Then she gestured to the last card, the one above all the others. "This shows what the struggle between you and your enemy is over," she said, "what will be affected by the outcome." She flipped and it showed a picture of a half-male/half-female being in the center of a circle. Outside the circle were a dolphin, an eagle, a lion, and a bull. "The World," she said, "you carry a great weight on her shoulders." Then Matt stood up and left the tent. "I hope he succeeds in his quest," said the gypsy, "the fate of the universe itself, or other universes may rest on his shoulders. Besides, it's not often I actually get paid in silver."

As Matt and Chris continued their walk, Matt told Chris about the gypsy's prediction. "Well the Knight and the Six fit you perfectly," said Chris, "and you don't need to have half a brain to know who your enemy is. Emperor Hamsterviel, clear as daylight." "But she said it could have meant two people," said Matt, "Like Hamsterviel will team up with someone really evil."

"That doesn't surprise me," said Chris, "when you look at his lackeys, you can't see any real saints." It took only a quick thought for Matt to agree with Chris. "But who can those three people who are supposed to help me be?" he asked. "Sounds like you're looking for someone's who dumb, lonely, or good with medicine to me," said Chris. "But the World," "Look, Matt, this guessing fun and all, but do you really believe all this? Even you have to admit it sounds pretty loopy." "You do have a point," said Matt, but he still had a nagging feeling about this...

Meanwhile, back at the Headquarters…

Silvia showed Virustoxico into the room full of crystal balls. Their several heads looked around and they said, "_**Well? What's this big business opportunity you told us about?**_" Suddenly Silvia touched various symbols underneath one of the crystal balls. Suddenly the ball opened up and a vortex came out. Before Virustoxico could do anything, they were sent hurtling through it. When the vortex spat them out, they could tell they were in some subterranean cavern. "So glad you could come here, Piton," said a voice. Virustoxico looked around and saw the Dragon of Asia, standing there. "_Er, do I know you?_" asked Piton. The Dragon of Asia smiled and suddenly transformed into an older woman. Piton's eyes bulged slightly as he said, "_Chang! It'sss been ssso long. I thought you were put in prissson._"

"I got bailed out," said Chang. "_And would be ssso foolisssh asss to do that?_" "That would be me," said a deep dark voice. Virustoxico turned around and emitted various sounds of surprise, shock, and a little bit of disgust. "_Dark Dragon,_" hissed Piton, "_I ssshould have known._" "You're looking well," said the Dark Dragon, "where'd you get that fancy armor?"

Here Virustocron broke in saying, "**I am no armor. I am Virustocron, the Hacker Baron, the Earl of Erasers, the Duke of Deletion.**" "Yes, yes," said the Dark Dragon, "I'm surprised you didn't try to find you old master. Perhaps that metal was weighing you down." In response, Piton hissed and opened his mouth wide. His head and neck telescoped all the way to his shoulders. Out of the open mouth came Piton's smokey head, the closest he can get to being separate from Virustocron. "_I wasssn't thinking of meeting you. In fact, I recall that said that you never wanted to sssee me again when I failed at turning Draco over to your ssside._" "Yes," said the Dark Dragon, "I admit that I was rather hasty when I did that. But employing yourself to that werepyre?"

(Author's note: Just to clarify, by freak coincidence, the events in 'The Curse of the Werepire,' did happen in this continuity, just without the parts with Lilo and Victoria being experiments and the whole romantic theme.)

"_Red Moon wasss a fairer massster than you. Besssidesss, I wanted revenge on the mongrel dragon that made me lossse my job._" "Ah, I thought you would get to that," said the Dark Dragon, "you see I had you summoned here for, a deal if you will." "_Forget it,_" spat the smoke hydra, "_there'sss nothing you can sssay or do to make me work with you again._" "What about Draco's head?" "_Eh?_" "I can offer you a swift chance to finally get rid of the Alien Dragon once and for all. And his cyborg cousin as well." Virustoxico paused and then Piton extended his armor over his head. "_**You have our attention.**_"

After explaining his plan and the Fang Stone's power, Virustoxico said, "_**So you need us to help you steal the Fang Stone so you can spread its affect?**_" "Yes," said Chang, "that's why I hired you two. You and Silvia combined can slip through their defenses and steal it before they can react." "But that leaves the question of how to power the machine," said the Dark Dragon. "_**What do we need?**_" "We need a large supply of negative energy, a collection of most of men's darkest emotions."

"_**NegaMorph!**_" cried Virustoxico without hesitation. "Who?" asked the Dark Dragon. "_**The black blob with the coat and hat, he'll turbo-charge that thing.**_" The Dark Dragon scratched his chin and said, "Very well, but there's the concern about that 'Lynch' person. The Fang Stone's mental effects aren't present in him at all. He could be a serious threat to our plan." Virustoxico grinned with his several mouths, showing poisonous fangs in most of them. "_**Don't worry about him,**_" they said, "_**we'll take care of him, personally.**_"

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There is a lot of important information in this chapter you should notice. It will appear in stories to come. I'll let you figure out what it is. Keep an eye out for the next chapter. Please review. 


	6. Hands Shown

AOE Saga

The Dragon Within

Chapter 6: Hands Shown

**New York**

**Central Park**

Matt and Chris sat in a deserted area of Central Park. "You know…Chloe woulda loved to have come here," said Matt sadly looking at the park. Chris sighed, "Look man. I know you miss her…but she wouldn't want ya moping around for the rest of your life." Matt just stared silently ahead as Chris carried on. "You gotta carry on with your life…oh great…" Chris said and Matt turned to see a very unwelcome sight bearing down on them; Virustoxico.

"_**Ah, Captain. We're glad we found you." **_they said, voices practically overflowing with flattery. Matt and Chris both mentally filed this under suspicious. "Ok, what do you want?" said Chris. _**"Mr. Lynch has to come with us. It is urgent," **_said Virustoxico. Matt shrugged. "I don't think it's urgent," he said, silently enjoying the chance to raise the blood pressure of one of his enemies. Virustoxico just glared. _**"Chang…I mean the Dragon of Asia sent for you specifically,"**_ they said slipping up slightly.

Matt and Chris looked at each other for a second. "No…I wouldn't go anywhere with you…not just because you can't decide who the message is from," said Matt. "Chris? Let's get outta here." The two turned to leave but jumped as a yell of _**"Iron Gorgon!" **_and a grey beam shot between them, turning a tree into adamantanium. They spun round to see Virustoxico readying another shot. _**"Then we'll just bring you by FORCE!" **_they yelled. Matt and Chris backed up slowly. "I wasn't that annoying, was I?" said Matt. He and Chris jumped aside as Virustoxico fired again and took cover behind the adamantanium tree.

A blast of Virustoxico's acid flames hit and dissolved a sizable part of the tree. "Wow. Halitosis from hell," Matt said before him and Chris ran out. Chris's eyes went golden as he went into Hybrid form and he ran at Virustoxico, snarling while Matt began shooting with his Plasma magnum. Chris leapt, claws out at the villain and from there it should have ended… Sadly, Virustoxico managed to grab Chris's foot in mid-leap with one of his tentacles, swung him round and tossed him into Matt, sending both of our heroes sprawling on the grass.

"Ow…that didn't go as planned," said Matt, groaning. "Urgh…Ya think?" said a dazed Chris, changing back to human. Virustoxico hovered over smugly. _**"You think changing forms will help you against US? Fools," **_they said _**"First we'll deal with your friend, and then you're coming with us." **_"No I'm no…yaaah," said Matt, the 'Yah' being as Virustoxico tossed him aside.

"_**Goodbye, Mr Powell," **_said Virustoxico. Chris just glared and answered. "Smeg off you…Borg reject," and suddenly grinned as he looked behind the villain. Virustoxico was a bit puzzled at this and turned to look, saying, _**"What are you lookin…?" **_He didn't finish as Matt, in dragon form, punched them in Virustocron's face. It sent the smoke hydra/machine hybrid flying and they got back up in what was clearly a smegged off mood. _**"THAT'S IT…I DON'T CARE WHAT OUR ORDERS ARE…YOU'RE DEAD MEAT!"**_ screamed both halves of Virustoxico and they rocketed at Matt who flew over their heads and spat a blue blast of plasma into the villains' back.

Virustoxico fired back but the plasma had no effect. "You two have the IQ of a supercomputer and you can't remember plasma doesn't work on me?" scoffed Matt as he did a flying kick. Virustoxico glared and yelled "_**Poisoned Lightning!**_" A bolt of sickly purple electricity appeared in their hand and they swung it like a whip. Matt didn't avoid it in time and it got him in the middle. He felt a little bit of nausea as he was thrown back.

Everything swam in front of Matt's eyes for a minute, but he saw Virustoxico floating towards him. They picked him up by his long neck and said, "_**This is the infamous Traveller? The thorn in the side of the Hamsterviel Empire? It's so easy to defeat you when you're caught by surprise. Guess the same thing could be said about that worthless sister you had.**_" Now if Virustoxico hadn't gloated like that, they would have won. But that mocking comment lit a fire in Matt that quickly filled him with energy. He broke out Virustoxico's grasp and started hammering them with a series of blows from his fists, claws, feet, and tail. Combined with his continual plasma blasts, Virustoxico's previously shining armor was soon full of dents, scratches, and tarnishes.

Suddenly Virustoxico let off a cloud of gas. Matt choked and coughed as the smoke-like substance ate up the oxygen around him. Then Virustoxico let out a blast of viral energy that threw Matt off. The amalgamation glared at Matt and Chris and said, "_**It seems that it's too much for us to handle both of you by ourselves. No matter, time's on our side. We didn't manage to capture or destroy you, but you're too late to stop the Dark Dragon from taking the Stone.**_"

"The Dark Dragon?" asked Chris, "that's pretty high treason you're talking about, smoke-can." "_**That's General Smoke-can to you. And as general, we're allowed to do whatever we want on our home world. And that just happens to be here.**_" Suddenly a nexus of digital energy surround Virustoxico. "_**Try and stop us if you must, but Silvia's probably has disabled the defences by now.**_" "Silvia's in this too?" asked Matt. "_**Not consciously, but that's why we wanted you in the first place. You'll never get back in time. By the time you get there, the Stone will be gone and NegaMorph too.**_" The amalgamated general vanished with a cackle of evil laughter and a flash of digital energy.

Matt and Chris looked at each other and ran full tilt back to the Humvee. The two jumped inside and gunned the engine. Matt turned on the comm in the front passenger seat. A Scottish voice sounded, "Leyton here…" it said. Matt responded, "Commander Leyton? It's Matt..." Leyton's voice changed from its bored tone to a happily surprised one, "Matt…Long time no…" Matt interrupted. "Look…no time…Get a Heavy assault team to this address," said Matt typing in an address. "That's an abandoned warehouse and cellar complex…it's condemned," said Leyton. Matt sighed, "Trust me...it isn't." Leyton could be heard sighing. "I'll get a force there…What's going on?" Matt said, "Trouble not seen since Sy-Yong colony." And cut the connection as the Humvee screeched round a corner.

Suddenly several shadowy objects landed on the roof of a truck in front. Matt and Chris stared…the things stared back and extended claws. "There's no way our luck is this bad," said Chris. The first creature leapt onto the hood of the Humvee and punched through the blast-proof glass like it was nothing, grabbing Matt round the throat. Chris hit the gas as Matt grabbed a blaster out the glove compartment, firing into the shade, knocking it under the Humvee.

"This 'Dark Dragon' guy's really insistent about grabbing you, eh?" said Chris, as more shades could be seen following leaping from hand hold to hand hold on buildings at the sides of the street before trying to leap onto the Humvee. There was a thunk as another shade landed on the roof and began tearing a hole in it before grabbing Chris and pushing his face into the wheel. Matt blasted it off as a dazed Chris got control back, just avoiding making the Humvee become one with a fire hydrant.

"Chris…gimmie the wheel," said Matt seeing that Chris was only just conscious. Chris did just that…he tore the wheel off and handed it over. Matt shrieked and just managed to get it reattached before they hit a wall. To make matters worse, another two shades had managed to land on the back of the Humvee, one tearing the rear passenger door off and climbing in, getting Matt in a headlock from behind.

Chris, having got his senses back jerked the wheel hard left, sending the Humvee into a spin along the ground. "Get off our car!" he yelled as he did this. The spinning sent the second shade hurtling off the Humvee but the other began trying to pull Matt out the back. Chris got an idea. "Hold on, Matt," he said. "Wha…what?" said Matt struggling with the shade as Chris braked suddenly. Matt jerked forward in his seatbelt…sadly the shade didn't have a seatbelt and shot through the remains of the windscreen to land in the street in front.

It got up in time to be hit by the Humvee going full tilt. Matt sighed. "We're almost there," he said as the Humvee turned the corner into the Vault street. Two other C.P.S Humvee's sat in the street, burning. The door to the warehouse was shut but shooting could be heard inside. Matt and Chris looked at the door. "Oh well…" said Matt as Chris reversed to give their car a good run up.

-----

Sgt Kay huddled behind the crates with the three others that were the remains of his team. "Those smegging shadow creatures," he said peering out. The five shades were in front of the warehouse blocking escape and two more were in front of the vault door. At least the giant dragon thing had gone. Suddenly the warehouse door smashed open and a damaged-looking Humvee, squashed the five shades before flattening the remaining two against a wall. "Hey, it's Captain Lynch," said his corporal, pointing as, indeed, Captain Lynch and another guy staggered out the now totalled Humvee. "Where…where're the others?" he said walking unsteadily up to Sgt Kay. "Downstairs I think…Sir?" he said as Matt and Chris exchanged horrified glances and ran through the entrance to the cellars.

------

Morph, NegaMorph, and Silvia were guarding the crystal when they started hearing bangs outside. "What's going on?" asked Morph. "Sounds like there's some kind of battle going on," said NegaMorph. Suddenly Silvia's eyes went blank and said, "My master is here." "Don't be silly," said NegaMorph, "Emperor Hamsterviel can't get to Earth, it's too well protected." Silvia didn't respond at all. "Hey, Silvia, what's the matter?" Morph waved a hand in front of Silvia and said, "Nobody's home." NegaMorph was highly puzzled. When Silvia first got zapped, she refused to change into human form. Then she started behaving oddly at random periods, like when she asked Virustoxico to accompany her somewhere. He wondered what was wrong with her. Suddenly, it sounded like there was fighting right outside the door. Silvia, still in her zombie-like state, walked over and reached for the button that would open the door. "Don't open that door!" yelled Morph, but his words fell on deaf ears and Silvia pushed the button.

The door flew open and a great black shape filled up the door space. It looked like a stereotypical dragon of medieval Europe, the kind that burnt down villages, devoured livestock, and stole maidens. It was the same dragon on that tapestry. "The Dark Dragon!" cried Morph and NegaMorph. Silvia bowed and said, "Master, the Fang Stone is yours to claim." NegaMorph was speechless for a second and then yelled, "Silvia, you double-crossed us!" "Not truly," said the Dark Dragon, "her will is my own and she obeys it. I'll deal with you presently but first, the Fang Stone."

The Dark Dragon reached out for it when he heard guns cocking behind his head. "Step away from the Claw Stone, or whatever it is, and get your claws in the air," said Matt's voice. The Dark Dragon turned around and saw Matt and Chris pointing their weapons at him. "You?" cried the Dark Dragon, "How did you get here in time?" "Nothing much," said Chris, "just some determination, coordination, and enough crazy antics to earn at least a hundred traffic tickets." "No matter," said the Dark Dragon, "the Fang Stone is mine." He grabbed the crystal and wrenched it out of its stasis field. But as soon at it had left, it let a sound like a party blower and burst into what looked like sticky confetti. "What?" cried the Dark Dragon, "It's a fake?" He turned on Matt and Chris and bellowed, "You two, where is the real one?" "I didn't know it was fake," said Matt, "it sure was real when it zapped me and Silvia."

"Well," said NegaMorph to himself, "if I'm going out, I might as well do what I meant to do." He reached out with his arm and grabbed Morph. But before NegaMorph could do anything, Morph started to swell. Matt thought for a second that NegaMorph had used some kind of magical poison on Morph, but then he realized that instead an instant bloating, it was more of a slow stretching; as if someone was filling up Morph like a balloon. Then a beam of light erupted from Morph's mouth and hit Matt. When the light cleared, Matt had somehow been turned into his dragon form. All eyes fell on Morph as he said, "Uh-oh, I'm busted."

The Dark Dragon looked confused for a minute then slowly grinned and said, "Well, it looks like I'll be taking two ugly blobs." "Who are you calling ugly, ugly?" said Morph and NegaMorph. Silvia pounced and seized both of them. Matt and Chris tried to rush in to help, but the Dark Dragon raised his wings and everything went dark. When the lights came back on, there was no one there except Matt and Chris.

**Lao Shi's electronics Store**

It was 20 minutes later. The surviving members of Sergeant Kay's team had left to make their report and Matt and Chris had just finished explaining what had happened at Central Park and on the way to and at the Vault.

"By the way," asked Chip, "what exactly was that stone they stole?" "That killer paperweight that we were guarding? The Dark Dragon called it…erm…'the Fang Stone'." said Matt. "I had a feeling it was," said Lao Shi. Everyone stared at him. "Lao Shi," said Draco, "what aren't you telling us?" Lao Shi pulled out a book from underneath his robe that was labelled 'Ancient Dark Artifacts.' He flipped through a couple pages and put the book on the floor. The title of the chapter the book was on was 'The Fang Stone.' A small hologram came out of the book showing an image of the gem that was stolen.

"The Fang Stone is a powerful magical device," said Lao Shi, "it was originally created to alter landscaping to the user's liking. But the Dark Dragon stole it and redesigned it to work mainly on people, humans to be specific. You see, when the original crystal was used on inhabited land, it could alter the memories of the people living on that land to match the alteration. But the Dark Dragon had given the Stone the power to change humans into dragons and brainwash them into obeying him. Soon, the Dark Dragon had almost transformed enough humans to overthrow all the untransformed humans. But the Dragon Council of that time stopped the Dark Dragon before it was too late. They took the Fang Stone and flung it through a portal to an unspecified location. How the Stone ended up with those Necromancers, I don't know, but the Dark Dragon has it now.

I had a good feeling what the true nature of that stone you found was and had developed a plan to prevent its theft. I had a feeling that Matt and Silvia would get into some kind of fight and would be too busy to notice anything and NegaMorph did not look like a diligent worker. So I told Morph to replace the Stone with a fake Fu Dog made when no one was noticing. But the part where the Stone used its power on Matt and Silvia and NegaMorph taking the Lockblade was unexpected."

"So the Dark Dragon's going to try to use the Fang Stone again," said Chris, "but how comes Matt wasn't brainwashed?" "Well," said Matt, "when that Stone knocked me out, I thought I heard V-627 and someone else fighting. Then the other one went away and V-627 said, 'And stay out!' I guess that was him rejecting that brainwashing half of the spell." "The worst part is that he doesn't need to go anywhere to build an army," said Chip, "New York City has at least 8 million people in it." For the first time, Lao Shi actually chuckled and said, "Now that is impossible. The Fang Stone receives its energy from negative energy. The Dark Dragon may be evil, but he could never produce enough to transform an entire city. Nothing on Earth can." "You mean nothing from Earth," said Matt, realizing the missing link. Everyone else noticed it too and cried, "NegaMorph!"

"NegaMorph's like…a nuclear battery of negativity. Dark Dragon'll be able to blast the entire city," said Matt, horrified, "We need to find the Morphs…fast." "Good thing we put that tracking chip in Morph," said Draco. "What tracking chip?" asked Chris. "Well, Morph was always wandering off and it can take while to find him. So me and Chip installed a chip that can be located with any searching scanner. I remember the day we first put it in.

_Flashback:_ Draco, Chip, and Morph were all in Jumba's lab, Morph was on the table. "Now let's see," said Chip looking at the different devices Jumba had, "Ah, this will do." He pulled a really big injector thing that the guards used to extract Stitch's blood in Lilo & Stitch. He placed a microchip inside the clear part under the needle and gave it to Draco. Draco aimed it at Morph's patookie and said, "Now hold still." "This won't hurt will it?" asked Morph anxiously. "Hurt? Nah, shouldn't hurt at all." "That's a relief," said Morph. Then Draco jabbed the injector into Morph with gusto. Morph let out a loud cry of pain and said, "You said it wouldn't hurt." "I'm not feeling anything," said Draco.

"Why didn't you say so?" said Chris in a tired voice. Chip shrugged, "You never asked." Matt who'd been looking gloomy to this point perked up and said, "I do know somewhere that can find the signal…" Draco said, "And where's that?" "C.P.S Headquarters. They've got a scanner that could find a speck of salt in the Sahara," said Matt. "I'm sure they'll look for us." He got up to leave and Chris followed him. "I need to ask, man. What happened at Sy-Yong? Do I wanna know?" Matt shook his head, "No…you don't…Hopefully you'll never find out." And he walked off to call Leyton.

**Later…**

The gang were currently inside C.P.S Headquarters. The facility was underneath the riverside dockyards and was about 200 feet below the subways. The main room looked like NASA Mission Control with technicians typing away and relaying orders. Matt sat in front of Commander Leyton who was reading Sgt Kay's report. "Normally I don't believe in magical mumbo jumbo like this…but it seems that this Dark Dragon's quite real…and you say this stone could mutate the entire city?" Matt nodded. "…And probably several nearby towns too if they use all of NegaMorph's energy."

"Fine…I started the scans as soon as you called. We'll know soon eno…" His comm beeped. "Leyton here," he said. "_Fzzzt…_This is radar…we just picked up something huge…and its heading our way…_fzzt_…oh smeg…its huge…open fire, OPEN FI…_fzzzzzt."_ The comm died. Matt and Leyton stared at it and both said, "Oh smeg."

* * *

There's another chapter. Sorry it took me so long to put it up. You have to read the next chapter. Not only is it the last chapter, but something very important will be revealed. Not sure when I'll update on account of final exams. Please review. 


	7. Hidden Ace

AOE Saga

The Dragon Within

Chapter 7: Hidden Ace

**C.P.S NY Headquarters**

**Operations Control**

The main screen displaying the locations of C.P.S divisions globally was flashing like a Christmas tree. Various snatches of comm messages could be heard.

"This is Chicago Division…We got heavy incoming…"

"Tokyo Division, requesting immediate re-enforcements…"

"This is Cairo Division…we're being over…"

Leyton shook his head sadly as the people at the consoles took distress call after distress call.

"They're all over the place," he muttered to himself. Suddenly the whole room shook, causing drifts of dust to fall and the main screen burst into static.

"What the he…get the radar back," said a guy at the console to a technician who shook his head.

"We've lost complete radar…someone cut the power at the surface," the guy reported to Leyton who thumped the wall in frustration.

------------------------------------

It was half an hour since the base power had failed. Leyton had asked Matt, his crew and Jake into one of the briefing rooms. There was a crash and some Tantalog wearing as Chip fell over a cable. "Gentlemen," said Leyton gloomily, "we've been without power for a while now, and something's not getting done."

"So...I thought you sent some engineers down there," said Matt, lighting a glow stick up.

"We did," said Leyton gloomily, "they haven't sent any messages back." Leyton turned his laptop round. "This camera reading was from earlier...and the...thing on it is the reason Mr. Draco is in medical." It showed two guards surprised when a red tear appeared and a claw dragged one of them through.

"That doesn't look good," said Chris. Then a giant cobra's head came out and swallowed the top half of the other guy. "Neither does that," said Chip.

Matt nodded. On the screen, Draco and some soldiers with flamethrowers arrived. The creature leapt through, tossing one guy into another before swiping at Draco with its tail. Matt looked at Jake, "You know that thing?"

"'Know' is putting it awfully friendly," said Jake, "that's a Krylock demon. I've beaten another one like it." On the screen, the Krylock managed to impale Draco's shoulder before it was wounded by several laser blasts as more guards arrived. It swiped another tear open and jumped inside it.

"Krylocks can open Interdimensional portals," said Jake, "they're not that easy to find. Not to mention they can inject venom from both sides."

"Is it lethal?" asked Matt. "I'm not sure," said Jake, "but if you eat it, it'll mutate you."

Leyton voiced up at that. "I think I remember something about that…some riot a few months ago at the school fair," before shoving his head in his hands. "This is a damn mess…this shouldn't be happening."

"I know I probably shouldn't ask this…'specially of you, Mr. Long," said Leyton and continued "…I'd like you two to go down with another combat engineer team to the power room…see what's going on."

Matt looked over at Jake. "How hard can it be?" he asked.

**20 minutes later…**

**Service ladder D-15**

"Ok…maybe it's easy…but it stinks," said Matt climbing down the rusty, muck covered iron ladder that lead directly to the power facility under C.P.S Headquarters…and a Time Crystal power reactor built aeons ago by the Ancients that C.P.S had 'plugged into'.

"Yuck! Man, it smells worse then when Gramps had me clean the toilet," said Jake as they reached the bottom of the shaft. One of the engineers looked at his map. "Ok…this'll open into the control room…problem is we sealed it last month," he said. There was a whomph behind him and he turned to see Jake had dragoned up. "Let me try," he said and removed the door from its hinges with a whip of his tail.

Inside, the control room was mostly deserted though there had clearly been a fight. Bullet holes, a few blood stains were all over the walls and shell casings and discarded assault weapons cluttered the floor.

The engineer team leader, Lieutenant Akaroy looked around. "Guess we missed the party…Mr. Long, Mr. Lynch, kindly go and check the reactor. Me and my team'll work on restoring power here," he said pointing to a door next to the observation window.

"I thought you said some ancient dudes built thi…wow," said Jake as Matt opened the door. The change in architecture was obvious. There wasn't any concrete or steel in here. The whole room seemed to be crystal in form…like it had been grown instead of built. The reactor itself consisted of a tower of time crystal rings stretching deep below the main platform that the door opened onto.

Matt walked around, saying, "There's three others on Earth…all the exact same distance from each other…I was quite impressed…we'll probably want to be careful though…nobody's exactly sure how deep the pit goes."

"So after the power's turned back on, what next?" asked Jake. "Radar said that the place where Dark Dragon's transmitting is accessible by a tunnel. But there's something in the tunnel. Sorta like goblins, except they're heavily armored." "Not goblins," said Jake, "hobgoblins. They're worst but just as stupid. Me and Haley can take care of them." "Who?" "My little sister. She's got dragon powers too, but they're not as good as mine yet. But when we work together, we are one butt-kicking team." "Yeah," said Matt, slightly dismally, "sounds great."

**Meanwhile…**

Chip and Contrinus were walking down the hall that led to the medical center. Neither of them needed emergency flashlights because Chip's could shine like one and Contrinus's feathers could glow. Nevertheless, the darkness around them was frighteningly eerie.

"You think Draco will be okay?" asked Contrinus as a few members of Sky Raptor squad walked by.

"I've seen him deal with worse things than a Krylock demon," said Chip in an assuring tone. "I'm sure he'll be fine."

"But what if that venom did go into his stomach?" asked Contrinus.

"Morph had his upper section in a Krylock's mouth, but nothing really bad happened to him…apart from how he inflated," said Chip.

"Morph cancelled it out with his allergies," reminded Contrinus.

"Oh, right," Chip looked slightly nervous put pulled himself together and said, "We'll just have to be a bit cautious then."

Leyton must have been thinking along the lines that Contrinus was. There were two bored looking Dark Star squad members. "Go right in," said the one on the right politely, even holding the door open.

Chip and Contrinus entered the medical center, slightly on their toes. Fortunately, the medical center had its individual power generator during a crisis. Draco was lying on one of the beds, his chest bandaged. "See," said Chip, "he doesn't look bad." He approached the bed and shook Draco's shoulder slightly. "Draco, Draco, it's me, Chip." Draco mumbled in his sleep and didn't make any response. "If you're alright, just grab my hand," said Chip. He put his hand in Draco's and it closed around his. "See?" said Chip, "He's showing signs of life."

Suddenly the hand turned into a scorpion's claw and tightened around Chip's hand. "Not the kind of sign I was looking for," said Chip in a worried voice. Draco's other arms and legs came out and the top two became scorpion claws while the rest became scorpion legs. His tail thrashed and the end developed a scorpion's sting. Then Draco's head shot and his eyes opened, his pupils dilated to slits. He looked at Chip and a hood that wasn't there before raised itself as he hissed with four mouths full of sharper fangs and forked tongues. "Oh blitznak," said Chip.

It was at this point that one of the guards walked in to see what was going on. "Holy sh…" he began, reaching for his sidearm but didn't finish as the mutated Draco hissed…and without much effort used his tail to toss one of the beds at the guard, knocking him clean out.

The second guard ran in at this crash. "Oh smeg…get outta here!" he yelled at Chip and Contrinus who did just that. He hit the alarm, one of the few functioning systems and was knocked over as Krylock-Draco rushed out after Chip and Contrinus.

Chip and Contrinus ran for a while until they reached a locked door. Before they could do anything to open it, Krylock-Draco came around the corner. Chip reached into his chest compartment and pulled out what looked like a small metal baton. He inserted his thumb into a small slot and gave it a small jolt of viral energy. The baton then extended into a bo staff. "Now Draco," said Chip, "I don't want to hurt you." Krylock-Draco spat out a blob of green slime, which hit the wall and melted through. "So much for that logic," said Chip and he whacked Draco between the horns with his bo staff. All this did was made Draco a little angrier than he already was.

As Chip dodged and ducked Draco's blows, Contrinus was hopping around nervously, not sure what to do. Then Draco grabbed Chip's bo staff and seemed ready to take a bite out of Chip. Contrinus couldn't help but give a small chirp of fear. Krylock-Draco's attention shifted to her and spat more acid. Contrinus dodged it and the acid melted through the door. "Thanks mate," said Chip and he kicked Draco in the stomach. While the mutated Draco recovered his breath, Chip and Contrinus slipped past down the stairs behind the door.

**Power room**

Matt and Jake looked around as distant alarms sounded. "That's never good…" said Matt and they both turned as one of the engineers was tossed through the observation window. "Neither is that," finished Jake.

The Krylock demon on the other side screeched at the two dragons it could smell ahead. The engineers had been easy to ambush…just like the first but here was a better meal, dragon. It tossed the dead engineer it was holding aside onto the control panel and sprayed some of its acidic venom over the exit, melting it shut and blocking the dragons' escape.

Matt jumped aside shooting and Jake went into dragon form, flying out of the way. The Krylock shrieked angrily and turned his attention to Matt who was desperately trying to transform too without success. "Oh hell," he said as the Krylock tried to claw him again.

Suddenly a lightning bolt crackled between two of the crystal rings and a siren sounded followed by a strange announcement that seemed to arrive at the brain without using the ears. "Crystal Matrix at 100 integrity…beginning reactor ignition sequence…" it said and several of the rings began to spin slowly. The Krylock demon looked up at the spinning reactor sections and tried to open a tear but all that happened was a shower or red sparks. The voice sounded again, "Dimensional stabilizer operating at full capacity…reactor ignition in 5 parsecs."

"Let's get out of here," said Jake, flying for the door. Matt didn't need telling twice and ran for the door, sliding under the Krylock. The demon itself turned and leapt after him, banging into the control room door which Matt slammed behind him.

"It melted the door," said Jake, pulling at it. Matt looked at the remains of the door lock, on the other way out not that there was enough power to open it. "Great…" The Krylock tried to stab through the smashed observation window.

"Reactor ignition imminent…" said the voice just as the electronic door was smashed open by a mutated Draco. Matt spotted Chip and Contrinus on the other side as a real announcement from the base said, "Containment breach…sealing Power room One…"

"Guys," said Matt, "what's going on?" His question was soon answered when what looked like a small green Krylock tackled him to the ground. As the mini-Krylock roared, Matt noticed it had four mouths, two horns, and four wings. "Draco?" Then Jake used his tail to whack Krylock-Draco off of Matt's chest. "Jake!" said Matt, "that thing's Draco. The venom must have mutated him!"

"I'll take care of Draco," said Jake, "you deal with the Krylock."

"Fine," said Matt. He turned to Chip and Contrinus and said, "You guys better get out of here." The two of them nodded and quickly left. As Jake tackled Draco into the next room, Matt turned to face the Krylock demon. Suddenly Matt realized who was faced with the tougher opponent. "Say, wait a minute…" His remark was interrupted when the Krylock started lashing at him.

Jake was wondering if he made a wise decision with choosing the right opponent. Draco seemed to be a lot swifter as a Krylock mutant than he was normally. "Will you ease up a little?" asked Jake, "it's almost as if you want to kill me." Draco hissed in reply and spat more acid. "What's the matter? Cat's got your forked tongues?" Draco roared and breathed lightning out of his second mouth. "Right," said Jake, "different mouths, different breaths, gotta remember that." Draco continued to spit lightning bolts at Jake as he weaved through the air. "You like electricity? How about I give ya some extra juice?" Jake kicked Draco into a cracked computer monitor. The monitor broke and Draco received an electric shock from the broken wires behind it. Then Draco crumpled to the floor, out-cold. Jake picked Draco up and said, "Don't worry, you'll be a lot better when that Krylock's dead." And he ran out the door.

A heavy blast door began to lower across the observation window. "I gotta idea," said Matt and ran back into the reactor. "HEY! SCORPIO!" called Matt rudely.

The Krylock demon roared angrily and leapt out after Matt, picked him up, and tossed him back into the control room, just as it finished sealing. "G…gotcha," said Matt dazed as the reactor turned on and Matt said, "I…need a better job," before falling asleep from exhaustion.

A small jolt woke Matt up. He looked around and saw that he was in the now-lit cafeteria and his team-mates and Jake was there. "No time to sleep now," said Akira. She handed a small vial to Matt. "Drink this," she said, "it'll help recover your strength." Matt gulped it down and felt all his weariness disappear.

"Thanks for that," said Matt as he stood up and stretched, "now what?" "We use that tunnel to get to the Dark Dragon's base," said Draco, completely experimental again. "Shouldn't we wait for Leyton's troops to get ready?" asked Rick. "When do want to do it?" asked Chip, "When you're a member of the BiNebular's crew, or when you're the Dark Dragon's foot servant?" "Point taken," said Rick, "so where's this tunnel?"

**A few minutes later…**

"You sure we can handle these hobgoblins?" asked Lilo as the group headed down the tunnel. "Sure," said Jake, "they're extremely simple-minded and anyone can trick them." "But won't there be a lot?" asked Kala. "A whole pack, maybe, but nothing we can't handle." "Seems awfully light security for such an important base," said Chris. "Yes it does," said Chip, uncertainly to himself.

Soon they heard the sounds of voices yelling nasty things at one another. "We must be close," said Matt. They soon found five hobgoblins guarding the chamber where the rest of the hobgoblins are. "I'll handle this," said Chris and he stepped out in front of the guards. Before they attacked, Chris pointed and said, "Look! A bunch of chimps!" All the hobgoblins turned around and asked, "Where?" Chris quickly clubbed them in the back of the heads and knocked them out. "Duh."

Then the group went to the door that led into the chamber where the main hobgoblin pack is. The hobgoblins were apparently very sure no one would come because they haven't locked the door. "Ok," said Matt, "on the count of three, we barge in and knock them silly." "Is that '1-2-3-go' or 'go-on-3'?" asked Stitch. Everyone gave him an odd look. "Just want to make sure." "1, 2, 3, go!" Matt kicked open the door and everyone jumped through.

A large pack of surprised hobgoblins met them. As soon as the first bunch were knocked out, the shadows on the walls came alive and jumped off. "Shades," said Jake as he clawed one in two, "don't worry. These guys are pushovers." Suddenly there was a roar and several humanoid creatures resembling a mixture of lion, goat, and snake appeared. "How could the radar have missed the chimeras?" asked Draco. "Ah, we can take them," said Matt.

---------------------------

The group were tied up with magically unbreakable chains in a cell in the Dark Dragon's lair. "'Ah, we can take them,' you said," mocked Chip. "Okay, this isn't the first time I've misjudged an enemy," said Matt. "But it will be the last," said Councillor Chang, who was standing over them with the key to the chains in her hand. Virustoxico was also there, with an air of smugness and smoke around them.

"Now, what to do with the lot of you?" said Chang, "Banish you to the Krylock dimension? Feed you to a kraken? Or perhaps we can go for an old-fashioned decapitation." "_**Just a minute there, Chang,**_" said Virustoxico, "_**Do whatever your heart desires to the others, but 6-2-8 and 6-2-9 are ours.**_" "'6-2-8 and 6-2-9'?" asked Draco, "is that what they refer us to in higher company?" "Oh, I thought we were closer than that," said Chip. However, Chang smiled and said, "Feel free to do that. In fact, you should exterminate the lot of them by petrifaction, poisoning, or what ever manner you can do. But the two real dragons belong to the Dark Dragon."

Before Virustoxico could comply, a loud explosion shook the room. "What was that?" asked Chang. Virustoxico checked the outside conditions and said, "It appears that these fools were a scouting party. They've brought Leyton and Dante's men with them." "We'll have to keep them off; we don't want the Dark Dragon's plan foiled before it comes to fruition." The two of them left the cell in a hurry, but Chang, in her haste, forgot to pick up the key that had flew out of her grasp during the explosion.

"I'll get it," said Jake and he extended his dragon's tongue to grab the key. He then unchained himself and the others. "Jake and I will get the Morphs," said Matt, "the rest of you can help out Leyton." "Right!" cried the others and they headed out the door. "C'mon Jake," said Matt, "let's have a pleasant chat with the Dark Dragon."

It didn't that long to find the Dark Dragon. Matt, because of his recent taste of the Fang Stone's power could numbly sense it. They went to the center of the lair where the Dark Dragon was finishing his preparations. He had constructed a machine that looked slightly like a cross between an observatory telescope and a laser cannon. It had two glass pods in it; the upper one holding Morph, whom the Dark Dragon evidentially couldn't get the Fang Stone out of, and the lower one contained NegaMorph, which was thicker because of the nature of its contents, who was smashing around and trying to get out. The Dark Dragon was typing in some calculations into a console when he noticed Matt and Jake.

"You are very persistent," he said, "I hate persistent." "It's over, Dark Dragon!" cried Jake. "That's what you think, but the projector's almost ready and you're too late to stop me." "Come down here and say that," said Matt. "I would, but I can not be interrupted right now, so I'll let my assistant deal with you." "Assistant?" asked Jake.

Suddenly there was a soprano roar behind them and both of them got knocked forward. They looked back and saw Silvia was standing there with wings outstretched and talons extended. "Don't worry;" said Matt, "I have experience fighting her." Then Silvia shot a bolt of lightning out of her mouth and zapped Jake and Matt. "Never experienced that before," said Matt. Then both rolled out of the way as she plunged claws into the floor where their heads were. "I'll take care of Silvia," said Matt, "you deal with DD." "Gotcha," said Jake and they both launched at their respective opponents.

Silvia turned out to be an even better fighter as a dragon than in her hybrid form. But Matt's dragon form didn't weaken him and he was able to fight on the same level as her. "You know you're nothing but a puppet to him, right?" said Matt. Silvia roared and knocked him back into the pod where NegaMorph was in. "Yeah, you don't want to call her a puppet," said NegaMorph, "she's a bit sensitive about it." "Like you are with 'freak'?" asked Matt. NegaMorph narrowed his eyes, "Watch it, you." The machine flickered on and off with the small burst of negative energy.

The Dark Dragon was having difficulties as well. Jake kept zipping about his head and was always maddeningly out of reach. "Enough!" cried the Dark Dragon and he shot a flame in front of where Jake was, causing Jake to crash. "No time for a warm-up, I'll have to go full power now." The Dark Dragon yanked a lever all the way in the opposite direction. The projector sprang to life and negative energies started hovering around Morph. NegaMorph shrieked with pain as the negative energy was forced from his body. The anger he felt from Matt and being used like this caused to give off even more energy.

Suddenly, cracks appeared in the sides of the machine and sparks of energy sprang out of them. The projector buckled and shook as the sparks flew faster. Then with a loud bang, several parts around NegaMorph's pod broke and a dense smoke shrouded it. "My transformation projector," cried the Dark Dragon, "what happened?" Then Matt started laughing wildly and said, "Guess that's what happens when plug a light-bulb into a 10,000 watt battery." With a roar of annoyance, the Dark Dragon pinned Matt to the wall with his tail and said, "I've had enough of your interference." "If I were you," said Matt, "I'd be thinking about something else." "What?" Then an odd echoing bellow could be heard from inside the smoke cloud. "One seriously smegged-off NegaMorph."

The Dark Dragon had only time to look around to see something black with red eyes leaping at him before he was ferociously clawed and bitten. "Don't worry," said Matt, "the EXP Virus won't work on dragons." The Dark Dragon struggled blindly before he could grab the enraged plasma creature and throw him off. NegaMorph landed on the floor and reshaped with the Lockblade in his hand the Lockmask on his face. "I'd take out my entire wrath on you," said NegaMorph, "but it won't do much good. I'll think I'll decapitate all your shades, but next time, I won't show mercy." Then NegaMorph vanished through one of the doors. The Dark Dragon growled and yelled, "Silvia, get that pseudo-dragon!" Before Matt could respond, Silvia tackled him through another door.

The tackle pushed them out a window and into the courtyard where CPS and the Dark Dragon's forces were fighting. Matt managed to get out of Silvia's grip and just dodged a lightning blast from her. Silvia dodged a RPG shot from CPS trooper on the ground and dived at Matt again, talons at the ready.

Matt was knocked to the ground but managed to kick her off. "Sorry, only my sis gets to hug," he teased, getting an angry roar in response. Silvia dived at where Matt's head would have been in dragon form. Sadly for her, he chose to change back, resulting in Silvia hitting the concrete wall, dazing her.

Matt winced in sympathy, "Ooooh…she'll feel that tomorrow," and turned to see NegaMorph finishing off a shade with the Lockblade. "Ah…I never thought I'd be glad to see you…eeep," he said dodging a dark energy shot from NegaMorph and continued, "and I'm still not glad," as NegaMorph advanced on Matt, looking angry.

"Heh…This isn't the time for this," said Matt nervously. "Call me a freak, would you?" said NegaMorph angrily and aimed a stab at Matt. Two things happened then: First, Silvia had come round and was getting up behind Matt. Secondly, Matt dodged NegaMorph's attempt to shish kebab him on the Lockblade, resulting in the blade catching Silvia in the chest.

There was a white glow and NegaMorph and Matt were temporarily blinded. When their vision came back, they were surprised.

Lying where Silvia should have been was a human woman, wearing the same combat fatigues that Silvia wore. Time had aged her slightly, but Matt had spent too long search not to know who the person was. "C…Chloe?" he said taking a step forward before a stun grenade landed at his feet and exploded in a blue flash, knocking him over.

NegaMorph looked over at Dante, who aimed a teleporter beacon at the unconscious Silvia/Chloe who vanished. A second later, he teleported away too.

Matt came round in time to see Dante vanish and NegaMorph activate a shadow portal after Dante. He got a faint glimpse of the inside of an empire cruiser before it closed.

A discard radio crackled and Leyton's voice sounded, "…Repeat…all units converge on the main core…Stop that stone going off…'_Fzzt_'" Matt got up, shakily and headed back into the base.

Meanwhile, Jake and the Dark Dragon were still fighting in the same room with the projector. "You know your interference meant nothing right?" asked the Dark Dragon as he swung a claw at Jake, "I've harvested enough negative energy to blanket this entire city." "Won't mean anything if you got nothing to shoot through," said Jake and he whacked his tail against the side of the other pod. A crack formed and Morph, who had spat out the Fang Stone during NegaMorph's rampage, slithered out and said, "Well, it's been real, and it's been fun, but it ain't been real fun." Then he quickly ran out the nearest door.

The Dark Dragon laughed and said, "You think those mutant slugs meant anything to me? They were just vessels of things I needed." "Yeah," said Jake, "That's how you see all your lackeys, don't you? That's how you see me." "Is that what you think?" asked the Dark Dragon, "you have so much more potential than any of them combined. In fact, our combined potentials would outweigh everyone else's." Jake blinked and said, "If that's your attempt to tempt me to joining you, than you can stuff that down your-"

The Dark Dragon smirked at Jake, who had pinned down to the floor in 20 seconds. "You could have had such power…yet you choose to side with these weaklings," he said raising his hand to deal the last blow. A bullet suddenly bounced off his back though and turned to see Matt standing just inside the door holding a pistol.

"Let…him…go," said Matt coldly, aiming at the Dark Dragon… who just laughed. "You think you can kill me with that feeble thing?" he said. Matt shrugged and turned his aim towards the now-glowing Fang Stone. "Not really…though it could do your little rock in," he said.

The Dark Dragon looked nervous for a second then said, "You wouldn't…you'd have to be insane to do it…" Matt looked thoughtful then took off what looked like an armband. "Yeah…yeah you're right," he said and closed his eyes. When they opened, they were glowing blood red. "But I'm just crazy enough," said V-627 and emptied the pistol's clip into the Fang Stone.

The stone seemed to scream like a wounded animal and light poured out of the cracks before it exploded violently, the shockwave knocking Matt/V-627 against the wall.

When Matt woke up, he was lying in the C.P.S. medical center with several doctors monitoring him. "Ah, you're awake now," said one of the doctors, "you received a nasty backlash from the explosion you caused, but I suppose it's for the greater good." "Where are my friends?" asked Matt. "They're outside, but you have to wait a few minutes before they can see you."

A few minutes later, Matt's friends were around his bed and wishing Matt a speedy recovery. "Enough about me," said Matt, "what happened after the explosion?" "The Dark Dragon escaped, but Chang was captured. Dante and the rest went back to wherever they call home. But, there's something else," said Chris. "When NegaMorph overloaded the machine, he made a large wave of transforming energy that affected everyone in the room," said Jake. "Meaning?" asked Matt. "You have permanent dragon powers, but your EXP powers are still dominant," said Lilo. "Fine," said Matt, "not the first time I've had powers forced on me." "What?" asked Lilo, curiously. "Nothing," sighed Matt.

"There's something really important I learned during this," said Matt, "but you can never tell anyone. Understand?" "What is it?" asked Kala. Matt took a deep breath and said, "My sister's alive, and she's been turned into Silvia." Nothing but a few gasps where heard, but Chris was seen mouthing, 'Oh my god, I dreamed about marrying his sister'. "You sure?" asked Akira. "She was knocked into human form during our fight. She was older and had longer hair, but I couldn't mistake her for anybody else. What I can't get is why the Empire wanted her. But no one can know about this." "Don't worry;" said Rick, "it's our secret."

But little did they know; there was another listener to this. While Virustoxico was threatening Dante and his men if they ever told about what happened, NegaMorph was crouching in a dark corner of the cargo bay. You see, NegaMorph had a unique ability that made him an excellent spy. He can break of one of his regrowable twin ears and attach to something. That ear can then allow NegaMorph to listen through it until it disintegrates. That was what he did when he jumped over Matt on his way out. So it was with wide eyes and dropped mouths that NegaMorph learned Silvia's darkest secret.

* * *

That's it for this story. Hope you've enjoyed it. This is canon so don't get mad at me for spoiling. In case you're wondering, no largefish8 did not tell me, I figured it out on my own back when I was writing Suspicious Kinds. PLEASE REVIEW.

Now for something of more importance: after several fanfiction writings, I've decided that I need to stop for a while. Consider it a break between seasons. The main reason I'm going on hiatus is because I'm writing my own real book. I'm stoping so I can concentrate on it more. I will be back, mark my words. Till then, I'll draft a sneak-preview for the next 'season' or arc for you to read. Keep an eye out for it.


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